


Shingeki no Drabble Series

by PorcelainBlue



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Art School, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Art Student Eren, Character Death, Female Eren Yeager, Gen, Genderbending, Lord Of The Rings AU, M/M, Music AU, Post Titan War, angry Eren, anonymous hate, busker!Levi, german shepherd!Eren, the thing I have for napes of necks?, yeah man I wasn't kidding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-21
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-01-16 12:00:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 57
Words: 39,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1346713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PorcelainBlue/pseuds/PorcelainBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Ereri oneshots and ficlets. Covers some Modern AU, Coffeeshop AU, Reincarnation AU, Art School AU, and Canon Era stories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Artist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren dreams of another life. He sketches to cope with the longing he can't quite place.

Eren sketches frantically, pinning half-remembered dreams onto paper when he wakes up panting in the middle of the night, arms outstretched to grasp at some nameless figure in a green cloak. 

When it gets bad, 4 straight nights of nightmares and little sleep, Eren chugs coffee and paints crumbling walls under a blue sky, he paints cities and giant forests and the smears of blood on metal, hands trembling and smeared with charcoal and paint.

Sometimes when he gets drunk he sketches, and when he wakes up, head pounding and sober he sees misshapen arcs and slim hands, an outline of thin eyebrows and hooded, piercing eyes.

He finds that he has a thing for men with undercuts, he wants to fuck them, but all he ever does is sketch them, outline the curve of their necks and the soft fuzz of hair in charcoal with a sense of wistfulness that he can’t quite place.


	2. Spring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi hates Spring. It's mainly the rain, though.

It’s spring, and it’s raining, and Levi hates it. He would have thought that Eren would also dislike the rain - it seems so mismatched with his sunny, warm disposition, Levi thinks, Eren is like summer. 

But Eren just shrugs, wet hair plastered across his face, and says something about how the rain changes the light, and he likes to paint the world after the rain, the light and mist and reflections shimmering off the roads. Levi grunts, supposing that as an art student Eren probably wouldn’t have anything against the rain. He hands Eren a spare umbrella (that he keeps for the forgetful boy, but he’d never admit it), and walks out of the coffeshop that’s become their usual haunt on weekends. 

* * *

But the more he thinks about it, Levi realises that the rain suits Eren, and it’s incredibly cheesy and he hates himself a little for it, but when Eren’s eyes brighten when they pass by the florists’, and he buys himself a couple of spring flowers (For watercolour studies, the boy insists, cheeks pink when Levi raises his eyebrows) he thinks that the flowers blooming green and pink and yellow in boy’s arms aren’t nearly as beautiful as the boy himself. 

* * *

It isn’t till he gets home that he finds a flower pressed in his wallet, and Levi decides that maybe Spring isn’t too bad, after all.

 

 


	3. Ocean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's taken them two lifetimes, but the trio make it to the Ocean.

They go to the beach, the three of them. 

They’re 16 when they’re allowed to go on a group vacation to the nearby town, they know it’s only because Armin’s grandfather lives near the sea and can vouch for their safety, but it’s enough. When they get off the train, butts sore from the ride, the smell of salt on the air hits them, and they look at each other for a moment before grinning and running as fast as they can towards the ocean. 

* * *

Eren reaches first, and he stops abruptly to stare at the huge wide blue expanse (it’s not even the most beautiful beach, not like the ones they’d seen on TV documentaries, but it’s  _perfect_ ) and Eren can’t really help himself from crying just a bit. Armin grips his hands as tightly as Mikasa does on his other side, and he drops to the ground, pulling them close, mumbling incoherently about how glad he is they’re here, they’re both here, alive and together, and it took two lifetimes but they finally made it to the ocean.

Mikasa bops him on his head and pulls him up, strong as she ever was. Armin’s eyes are red-rimmed, but he’s smiling and pulling Eren towards the wide expanse of blue, and Eren tastes salt on his lips even before he reaches the water. 


	4. Mixtape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren bothers Levi with music.

Eren likes to bother Levi, (no surprise there), and likes to force his ipod (surreptitiously wiped) on Levi, insistent on making the shorter man listen to some new band or song he’d found. 

Levi is sure that if they weren’t in the 21st century, his room would be filled with mixtapes by the green-eyed boy, and he groans internally at the voice that whispers,  _you’d like that, wouldn’t you?_

… Godamnit, he would. He’d love to receive mixtapes from that idiot, kiss that stupid grin off his face and press his own ipod back into tanned, warm hands. But every time Levi even thinks of acting on his stupid crush, he looks at Eren and his throat seizes up, and he never manages to say anything of importance.


	5. Resting Easy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi is the big spoon

When they sleep, Levi is the big spoon. Eren finds this funny, considering that their size differences carry over to this lifetime. Eren knows that this is because Levi still feels the need to protect Eren, knows when the memories of his death (by Levi’s hands, their world had a cruel sense of humour, after all) comes in the form of nightmares Levi grips his waist tight enough to bruise, breathing harsh against the back of his neck.

So Eren allows this, scoots back into the strong embrace (no one really calls Levi Humanties Strongest anymore, but in his mind Eren does) and rests easy.


	6. Rage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren gets angry, Levi calms him.

  
It is a well known fact amongst the 104th Trainee Corps that when Eren gets angry, he gets  _really_  angry. His eyes blaze and his jaw sets, and while they trust him and don’t suspect him of becoming a Titan to kill them, he does fly into a rage, and the violence in his voice and actions does freak some of his peers out a little.    


Some time after the 57th expedition, Jean says something that cuts a little too close to home, and Eren has that look in his eyes that has Mikasa and Armin shifting in their seats, ready to hold the Titan-shifter down. The chair clatters to the floor as Eren stands up, a familiar look of violence in this blue-green eyes. The rest of the squad shifts nervously, and even Jean knows to keep his mouth shut and wait.

But, the door slams open, and all of them flinch when they see Corporal Levi taking in the scene before him impassively. Their commanding officer ignores the tension in the room, and walks purposely towards Eren.

"S-Sir, you should be careful, Eren - " Armin begins to say. He is quelled by a look, so he clamps his mouth shut and steps back to watch warily as the Corporal approaches the seething boy. 

Mikasa’s eyes narrow in distrust, expecting Levi to use violence to punish Eren for making a scene, because they all know by now that words don’t have much of an effect on Eren when he gets like this.

However, Levi does nothing except to bring a hand up to rest on the nape of Eren’s neck and squeeze lightly. The Corporal’s face holds all of its usual apathy, but his voice is low and gentle when he speaks, “Eren. Calm down.”

Amazingly, Eren does. The tension bleeds out of him, and his eyes lose their violent, glazed look. The boy leans against Levi’s hold on his neck briefly, blinking as he comes back to rational thought. Eren ducks his head down and murmurs an apology, to which Levi just nods and steps back, fixing the rest of the squad with a look that dares them all to comment. 

None do, for everyone is still staring at Eren, mouths agape, even as Levi walks out of the room without a word. Eren rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, and even Mikasa is amazed that Levi seems to be able to take Eren in one of his rages, and pull him to heel so easily. The look in Eren’s eyes in that moment was utterly docile, and nobody knows what to make of it.

The silence is broken by Jean incredulously voicing out all their thoughts, “Dude, what the  _fuck_?”


	7. Artist II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren draws on Levi.

Once Eren bought body paint and worked up the courage to stammer at Levi that he wanted to draw on him. Levi raised his eyebrows and shrugged, figuring that he could humour the kid, and he could always shower after.

What he didn’t expect was for Eren to shift him onto his stomach, straddle him from behind and painstakingly paint a pair of overlapping wings on his back, his brush dragging deliberately onto his skin, arching curves between his shoulderblades and down his spine. The brush is ticklish on his skin, and Levi’s skin breaks into goosebumps when it dips lower to swirl at his lower back, dangerously near the line of his underwear. 

He can tell Eren is done because he can hear him replacing the cap on the paint and putting the brushes aside, but his young lover doesn’t move from his perch, and Levi is about to ask him to shove off when soft hands trail down his ribs, passing lightly over the now-dried strokes of paint. Soft lips land at the nape of his neck, and Levi shivers as Eren nuzzles into the soft hair of his undercut. 

"You’re so beautiful like this," the boy murmurs into his hair, voice reverent, and the sound of it makes Levi’s throat close up, and he presses his face against the sheets instinctively.


	8. Starbucks Green

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi thinks about Eren in green.

When Levi handed the Scouting Legion cloak to Eren, he noted idly to himself that the green suited the boy. Eren was all tanned skin and wide green eyes (Levi’d seen such a shade before, once in the pond of a noble’s garden, back within the inner city walls), and Levi thinks that against the tan of the boy’s throat, the green makes him think of trees and woods, and he likes that. He snorts, and casts the thought away to the back of his mind after a moment. There are better things to do. 

—

But Levi can’t kick the notion from his mind, and when the tension and desire between the two of them wells up and  _bursts,_  Levi digs his pale hands into that coarse green cloth, and kisses Eren hard against a tree in the evening sun, and Levi finds that green is everywhere - in those eyes and in the trees around them, and in the cloak he has bunched in his hands as he kisses the boy again, again,  _again._

__—_ _

It is the year 2014, and Levi has no idea what universe it is, but it sure as hell isn’t the one he remembers from his dreams. There are no Titans here, no hulking humanoid silhouettes in his horizon. Instead there are buildings, tall and grey, and his dreams and nightmares like ashes on his tongue.

He is early for work, as usual, and so he shoulders into the nearby Starbucks to get his tea. Honestly, the drinks here are usually too sweet for his liking, but it’s near his office and there aren’t any other cafes around, so he makes do. By now the staff here know his preferences, so there isn’t much of an issue.

Levi is glancing at his phone when he reaches the counter, and he only looks up because he’s met with a rather obvious silence from whoever is manning the cashier today. (It’s not like it really bothers him, but he does expect some form of acknowledgement, and the staff usually know him on sight, so this must be someone new.) 

There is some biting remark on the tip of his tongue when he looks up, but the words never find their way past his lips, because the man standing wide-eyed and panicked behind the wooden counter is painfully familiar, and the most beautiful thing Levi has seen in this lifetime. 

"Eren," he breathes, and Eren - his Eren, beautiful Eren - smiles like the sun coming out, relief evident in his face. He wants to say something, and his heart is hammering in his chest, but nothing happens, and the moment drags long between them before someone behind him clicks their tongue impatiently. The both of them start, jerked back to reality by the noise. Levi murmurs his order and moves off to wait, and Eren nods dutifully, knowing somehow that Levi would be waiting until he got off his shifts. He shows Levi two fingers to indicate he had 2 hours left, and Levi nods as he takes his tea, pale fingers brushing against tan.

—

Levi settles into a seat near the counter, alternating between writing in his notebook (poems already line the margin, angry ink scribbles about the sea and death and green green  _green_ ) and watching Eren work. He takes a moment to email Erwin, just three words (‘I’ve found Eren.’) and the reply is quick - he’s got the day off.

The boy keeps looking up at him while working, and this causes him to fumble a few times and spill some soy milk on his apron, but Levi can’t even bring himself to snort or roll his eyes like he normally would, because the compulsion is the same in him, he glances up from his notebook to check that Eren hasn’t disappeared every few minutes. 

He takes in the sight of Eren, taller than he was before, but still the same. The furrow was the same, the touseled hair was the same. He looks at Eren in his black shirt and Starbucks apron, and Levi catches himself thinking that the green suited the boy, suited his skin, and everything about Eren in that shade of green is familiar and  _perfect._

_—_

Its two hours and Eren has just emerged from the employee’s room, and he’s standing in front of Levi’s table nervously, teeth worrying at his lower lip as he looks at his former Corporal. Levi moves to stand as well, and the air between them is charged but neither man knows what to say or do. Levi’s eyes are wide and that two feet of space between them feels larger than any ocean. 

"Eren," he says, and his heart’s in his throat and he knows this is the most important moment in his life, now.

“ _Eren_.” 

Something inside Eren  _breaks_ , and suddenly he’s moving, and Levi is now clutching a handful of the boy. The shuddering warmth pressed up against him is soft and fills a hole that Levi’d known he’d had when he first woke up in the middle of the night with the smell of Titan blood in his nostrils. 

"Corporal," Eren’s voice is muffled against his shirt, and there’s a dampness on his chest that would normally have him recoiling, but it’s Eren, and the smell of the boy shouldn’t be the same but it is, warm and woodsy and Levi is forcibly reminded of forests and coarse cloth under his palms.

"Levi. I’ve found you." 

He holds the boy close, ignoring the few curious bystanders in the coffeeshop, and cradles the back of Eren’s neck, ducking his head down to press his cheek against the side of the boy’s face. 

"I’m here, Eren. I’ve got you," he murmurs soothingly, and Eren melts into him, just like he did so many lifetimes ago. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay uh I don't know what happened, all I was thinking of was Eren in the Starbucks apron, and then this happened.


	9. Female this time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren is reborn as a girl, this time.

Eren is a girl in this lifetime. 

 

She’s still the same, though, and when she finds Armin and Mikasa again nothing’s really changed between them - she still gets into fights and trouble and the three of them are inseparable as always. 

But once she hits puberty she sort of realises that  _if_  she ever finds Corporal Levi again, would he still want her? Even if they were together in another lifetime, Eren can’t help but worry that whatever quirk of biology that left her body female instead of male would be enough to have the Corporal turn away from her in disgust.

But she does find her Corporal, and he’s as pale and beautiful as she remembered - a bit taller this time (it must be access to better nutrition during his formative years, she thinks), and she’s a little shorter, so for once she’s not looking down at him, but eye to eye. 

Her elation at finding him is soon replaced by apprehension when he finally notices the glaring differences of this lifetime. She fidgets, and mutters that she understands that her body is different now, and she won’t bother him for much longer. But before she can leave his hands (still cool and calloused and perfect) wrap around her wrist and pull her back, and his voice is tinged with exasperation when he scolds her for being melodramatic, of course he still wants her, he fucking sacrificed his life for you, you shitty titan-brat, do you think boobs and a lack of a dick will change anything?

Eren flinches at his harsh tones before her brain can process what he’s actually saying, and by then Levi’s face has softened as he pulls her close and says exasperatedly, “You’re still Eren, right? The form your body takes is incidental.”

Eren smiles, giddy with relief and replies, “Shit Corporal, I’m sorry.”

She ducks her head down and murmurs softly, “I still love you too.”


	10. Cafe Drawing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren goes Cafe Drawing

Eren chewed on his lip in concentration, brow furrowed as he looked down at the sketch he was doing. The proportions were all wrong, and he kept surreptitiously looking at the person he was trying to draw, a man that had caught his eye a few tables away. 

The man was reading a book, drink in hand, and he pale and sharp and cut from perfect angles, thin lips and brows and a delicate nose. Eren had been trying to get his likeness for the better part of the last hour, and his sketchbook was filled with scratched out drawings of said man. 

But when he looked up again, the man was gone from his seat, and for a moment he thought with disappointment that the beautiful man was gone, but then he realised someone was standing, no, looming over him. 

Jerking back in surprise, he looked up to see the person that he’d been drawing, irritation clear on his features as he looked down at Eren. 

"Oi, brat. What the fuck do you think you’re doing? You’ve been staring at me for the past hour, what do you want?", his voice was low, smooth, and angry. Eren startled visibly at his words.

Flustered, Eren flushed and stammered an apology, “So-sorry! I uh, didn’t think I was that obvious,” The man’s expression darkened, and Eren realised that his entire demeanour was bordering on hostile, body subtly angled for a fight. Eren threw a hand up in a placating gesture, and placed his sketchbook on the table for the man to see.

"I’m sorry, you’ve got a really nice face and I was trying to sketch you, but I couldn’t get it right." 

The man raised an eyebrow at him, amused, when Eren flushed bright red after he realised what he’d just said. He paused, and angled his head to look at the drawings, and looked at Eren again, 

"Not bad," he murmured, his earlier hostility gone from his stance. "Be more careful next time, kid." 

He turned around to leave, and Eren was somehow compelled to stand up and say, “I’m Eren!” Groaning internally, he watched in trepidation as the other man turned towards him, face unreadable before those gorgeous lips curved into a smirk.

"Levi," he said, and turned to leave. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Actually, I just thought that ArtStudent!Eren is incredibly likely to offend people by drawing them and being all furrowed brows and INTENSE GREEN GAZE. Oh Eren you precious thing what have you done to me.


	11. Hair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren helps Levi with his hair

  
Eren thinks that he might be facing death right now. That is to say, if he fucks this up, Levi is going to gut him with the razor in his hand and they’ll never find his body.

He had stumbled into Levi’s quarters after training, intending to take a shower before heading down for dinner. Upon entering their (now shared, thanks to their relationship, which had veered sharply into the romantic category sometime last month) he found the rather bizarre sight of Levi shirtless and leaning over the counter, a few steel implements laid neatly in front of him, and what looked to be shaving cream smeared over the back of his head.

Eren squeaked and stood stock still, hoping that he hadn’t unwittingly walked in on some strange ritual, but a few moments of Levi staring at him impassively and Eren realised that his Corporal had been cutting his hair.

"Uh, sorry Corporal, I’ll just uh, go," he offered, making to turn around and leave the bathroom, but he was interrupted by Levi’s voice.

"Eren. Come here and help me with this."

Eren approached warily as Levi turned to press a metal razor into his hands.

"If you fuck this up, I will end you," said Levi, voice low and only mildly threatening as he turned back to face the mirror and offer his back to Eren.

The Corporal’s height was perfect (not that he’d ever say that aloud) for this, and Eren only had to bend down slightly to scrape the razor over the pale neck of his older lover. This close, he could see goosebumps forming on the exposed skin.

"Do you always do this yourself, sir?" He asked as he worked. Levi gave an affirmative hum, but spoke when Eren’s silence seemed to prompt an answer.

"I don’t like other people with blades near my neck or behind me." Eren hummed in response, the answer making a lot of sense. Even with their primary enemy being Titans, all of them within the Survey Corps were first and foremost soldiers, and even Eren got twitchy when someone made aborted motions near his head. It made even more sense with Levi, especially if any of the rumours surrounding his past was true.

It was only then that Eren realised the implications of the situation - that Levi had just essentially told him he didn’t even like his comrades - to whom he entrusted his life to - with this act of intimacy, but the same Levi had basically just pressed a piece of sharp metal and offered Eren easy access to the back of his neck.

Eren’s ministrations had stilled with the shock of the realisation, and Levi’s shoulders tensed slightly, not because of a perceived threat, but because he guessed where Eren’s thought processes went, and it wasn’t like he was the type to get embarrassed, but he was half naked in his own damn bathroom and the admission he’d just made was making him uncomfortable in the cool silence.

But Eren just picked up the razor again, carefully dragging the blade up the back of Levi’s skull, and then to the sides, trimming underneath the longer hairs at his crown with a precision he hadn’t expected the normally clumsy boy to have.

Eren’s hands were soft (courtesy of his healing abilities) and gentle against his skin and ears and neck, and the drag of a warm, damp cloth pulled over his neck and back to collect the fallen hairs on his skin soothed the tension in Levi’s shoulders. When he looked up to the mirror to check the boy’s work, he found it was perfect, and when he met the boy’s eyes, he found a familiar brightness in those blue-green eyes.

"Thank you, Eren. It’s not a bad job."

Eren just smiled softly, eyes still holding on to that strange expression from earlier. He bent down and pressed a soft kiss to the back of Levi’s neck, and murmured softly against the pale, scarred skin.

"Thank you for your trust in me, Corporal."

Levi’s eyes softened, and he turned around so that Eren was now crowding him against the bathroom counter. He pulled the boy close, kissed him softly, slowly, like he had all the time in the world.


	12. Make me up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi is a makeup artist, Eren is a model.
> 
> Levi wants.

  
"Shit, stay still you fucking idiot," Levi hissed at the fidgeting model seated before him. 

 

Eren stilled, huffing only a little. “Why hasn’t the agency fired you for your rudeness, I’ll never know.” He said, amused. 

Levi’s reply was low and even as he continued applying makeup to Eren’s face. “Because, brat, I’m damn good at my job, and really, you should be used to it by now. “

 

Levi regarded Eren’s face as he fixed the makeup around his eyes. Ruthlessly tamping down the heat that flared in his gut at the sight of the model's face tilted up towards him, lashes lowered submissively, Levi continued with his job. Eren was a model at  _Legion_ , it was his job to look as attractive as possible, but it didn’t stop Levi from being frustrated at himself. 

 

—-

 

When he met Eren, the boy had been sitting down and rummaging through his bag when Hanji introduced Eren as the new model to the team. Levi had drawled something about being rude and not greeting him properly as he stared, unimpressed at the mop of brown hair in front of him.

Then Eren had jerked upright, face flushed and eyes wide- and oh god, those eyes, Levi could look into them forever and still fear forgetting that shade - and the new model smiled slightly, apologised and offered his hand out in apology and Levi knew he was doomed. 

 

—-

 

He watched as the young man arched and stretched and draped over furniture, legs splayed and crossed, arms this way and that as Hanji directed Eren from behind their camera. 

 

The boy was beautiful, and clothes draped across his frame in a way that made Levi want to dress him and undress him at the same time. Eren’s current photoshoot was running on a dark, almost gothic theme, and the sight of those green eyes rimmed in black was enough to make Levi want to bang his head on the nearest wall. It made him think of the boy in bed, eyeliner smudged and gaze heated and - no, Levi wasn’t going to ruminate in this any further. He turned sharply and went to organise his workstation. 

 

—- 

 

When the shoot was wrapped up, Levi was still in makeup, waiting to get a ride home from Hanji. Hearing some faint cursing, and turned around to see Eren dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, rubbing at his eyes while peering at a mirror. 

 

"Eren, what are you doing?" He asked slowly. 

 

The model in question stiffened and turned around, face a bit pink. 

 

"I uh, can’t get this off? And uh, everyone was busy so I thought I’d do it myself…" He gestured uselessly at his face, where his eyeliner had been smudged haphazardly due to his earlier actions. 

 

Amusement and lust warred within Levi’s mind (all the smudged eyeliner managed to do was make him look like he’d just tumbled out of bed after a night of fun, but the brat’s face was so hopelessly lost that Levi felt his mouth tugging upwards. 

 

"C’mere," he said, reaching behind to grab some makeup remover and cotton pads.

 

Eren came closer obediently, mumbling something about not wanting to make levi have to put away his stuff twice, but Levi just shushed him impatiently as he tugged Eren onto a chair. 

 

"Close your eyes," he murmured, dragging the pad across Eren’s eyelids gently. 

 

Eren hummed softly to himself as Levi worked to remove his makeup, and despite himself he relaxed under the older man’s cool hands and gentle touch. 

 

He cracked and eye open, and was greeted with the sight of Levi’s face close to his, eyes narrowed in concentration, and a hiss from the older man to keep his eyes closed. Heat flooded his cheeks at the proximity, and he fiddled with the hem of his shirt, remembering the reprimand he’d received earlier in the day. 

 

A vague noise of affirmation signalled that Levi was done, and Eren looked up to see Levi, still close to him, looking straight at his eyes. Neither man said anything, but this close, Eren could see that Levi’s eyes were dilated, and the sight caused an odd flipping in his stomach. 

 

"Levi?" He whispered, voice raspy. 

 

The sound of his name caused Levi to jerk back, and he rummaged in his bag before pressing something into Eren’s hands. 

 

"Makeup removing wipes- they’re handy if you ever need to get rid of shit on your face." He said shortly at Eren’s look of confusion. 

 

With that, he made to move away from the boy, put some distance between himself and temptation, but a tanned hand shot out to grip him by the wrist, and he turned back with a dangerous expression on his face.

 

"Eren, what are you doing?" He asked for the second time that day. 

 

The brunet’s face was tinged pink, and he licked his lips nervously, and Levi followed the action hungrily with his eyes. “I.. Uh.” Came the coherent reply, and Eren flushed further, looking away but never once loosening his grip on Levi’s wrist. 

 

Warmth and hope suffused Levi, and slowly, deliberately, he tilted his arm upwards, gripping Eren’s wrist in turn. 

 

The boys’ eyes widened and snapped to his face, confusion and hope painfully clear on his features. 

 

Leaning in till their breaths were all but mingling, Levi asked, “Do you want this, Eren?” , hating the way it came across so pining, so desperate for the breath of a boy he’d been looking at for the better part of the last six months. 

 

This close, he could see every flicker of those eyes, and when Eren’s face broke into a small, shy smile, Levi could have sworn the world stopped moving.

 

Eren nodded, and moved his lips closer, just millimetre’s shy of the other man’s. “Yes,” he whispered, feeling his breath ghost across both their skin. 

Levi’s eyes fluttered shut at the sensation, and his hand reached out to pull Eren close once and for all, and he pressed his lips against the boy's mouth, kissing him lightly before pressing against the plush flesh of his lower lip, parting his mouth to taste the boy. 

 

Eren made an flustered sound at the back of his throat, and parted his mouth easily, tongue swiping up against Levi’s, and the sensation of wet heat against his mouth dragged a groan, low and harsh out of Levi. 

 

Eren responded with a sigh, pulling Levi closer so the smaller man was standing between his legs. Pressing his palms out, Eren splayed his fingers across Levi’s chest, revelling in the warmth and solid weight of the man. 

Levi kissed him with abandon, finally allowing himself to take what he’s been wanting for so long- and Eren was beautifully willing, leaning back, body open as he welcomed Levi’s mouth and wandering hands. A pale hand reached up to grip eren’s hair and pull his head back, and both their eyes widened at the moan that spilled from eren’s throat. 

 

"Fuck, Levi," the boy bit out, "do you have any idea how long I’ve - nnghh"

Levi laughed as he bit at Eren’s neck again, a low chuckle that sent Eren’s heart rate through the roof. “I think I have an idea, Eren, if it’s anything like how long I’ve been waiting.” His tone was wry, and Eren felt himself warming at the words. Eren reached up to curl his hand around Levi’s neck, wanting to pull him close again. 

 

Suddenly, the door slammed open, and Hanji bounded in brightly only to stop what they were saying halfway to blink at the two of them, Levi halfway to straddling Eren on a chair. 

 

A moment passed, the both of them frozen with horror as Hanji’s face broke into a wide grin. 

 

"No." Said Levi shortly from his perch on Eren’s lap. "Whatever you’re going to say, don’t say it, shitty glasses."

 

Hanji pouted, and walked slowly close. Eren was internally panicking at the stern look on hanji’s face, but when they came close enough and looked intently at the both of them

 

Over the tops of their spectacles, hanji said, voice low and serious, “I want all the details. Eren, if Levi treats you badly tell me, alright? Levi, remember to be safe and use condoms and safe words okay?” 

 

Eren turned bright red and sputtered, but Levi just gazed impassively at hanji, until the photographer laughed- more like cackled- and bounded out of the room in glee, slamming the door shut after them. 

 

The silence in the wake of Hanji’s departure lasted for a moment or two before Eren started laughing, running a hand compulsively through his hair as he looked at Levi once more. 

 

"So, what now?"

 

Levi settled himself properly around Eren, his knees on either side of the boy, and he leaned in once more to press his forehead against Eren’s. 

 

"If you’re sure you want to do this -" he began, ignoring the almost impatient nod from the boy even as the action soothed his frazzled nerves somewhat, "i’d like to take you to dinner." 

 

Eren laughed at that, and Levi’s heart would have lurched if not for the fact that Eren was still gripping into him tightly, his eyes bright with relief and happiness. 

 

The boy beneath him nodded, pressing close once more to kiss him once more. 

"Dinner it is, then."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay this is uh, self indulgent to the max. But I was on a shinkansen for 3 hours today with no wifi so I did this on my phone. I also have no understanding of what a makeup-artist's job entails - this was borne from me trying to rid myself of eyeliner. Either way, I wrote so much of it I figured I'd post it up! Thank you for reading.


	13. Ribcage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boy has beautiful ribs, Levi thinks.

  
They stay like this, even though Eren is tempted to (politely) ask Levi to hurry up and do  _something_  because he goes insane, but this isn’t the first time that Levi refuses to speed things up, so Eren just shuts his eyes and leans back over the back of the sofa, arms draped softly over the spread of Levi’s bare shoulders.    


Levi watches as Eren visibly forces himself to relax, shoulders dropping and eyelids lowering, and the older man’s throat is dry as he watches the bobbing of Eren’s throat as he throws his head back. His neck is flushed and the whole sight of him is a long, easy stretch of tanned, perfect skin, dark against the stark white of Levi’s fingers. 

He spreads his fingers across those ribs, tracing the outline of bone under skin. Eren has less muscle mass than he does. Eren is softer and more boyish, and while he is lean, the Survey Corps doesn’t exactly feed them enough for the boy to build much muscle. Even so, the boy is far from weak, and Levi secretly loves the sight of those bones slightly exposed when Eren is like this, back arched over the back of the old sofa in his office. 

He likes the curve of that diaphragm, likes to dip his fingers into the ridges of Eren’s sides and press his palms up against his sides, feeling those ribs, strong against Humanity’s Strongest, protecting the soft flesh he’s grown so fond of, protecting those internal organs that bleed and rupture and break over blades and metal. Levi likes the strong bones of Eren’s body - likes knowing that those bones will hold strong where they matter, and that those bones will keep Eren safe, so his lover can return to him, bruised and beaten, but never broken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something short I wrote a while back, when listening to sad songs and thinking about the frailty of human life.


	14. Levi's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren and Levi go shopping.

Eren dragged Levi out to go shopping, mainly because his jeans are so worn out that they wouldn’t even pass for ‘distressed’ anymore. Also because Eren hates shopping alone (he can’t really ward of sales assistants off, and Levi is really good at that), and honestly he does want to know his boyfriend’s opinion on some of his sartorial choices.

Levi had been his usual and apathetic self throughout the trip, but suddenly a glint appeared in his eye and he all but dragged Eren into a denim store, looked around, picked a few jeans and threw them at his surprised boyfriend. Not knowing what to do about the sudden change in attitude, Eren just huffed a little sigh and went to try the jeans out.

As it turns out, Levi had magic eyes or something, because most of the jeans were a perfect fit, and Eren went ahead to purchase a pair since there was some discount offer going on. Satisfied with his objective completed, he glanced over to Levi, who had a rather smug expression on his face.

"…Not that I’m complaining that you helped me pick these jeans and all but, what’s that look on your face for?" he asked warily.

Levi just smirked wider, hand darting out to pull Eren forward. Pale fingers curled into the soft fabric of his T-shirt, and Eren felt hot breath against his ears as Levi spoke into his ear, “Eren, you just bought Levi’s jeans.” 

Eren flushed bright red, and scrambled out of the store to look at the headboard, earning a few curious glances from the sales assistants. He glared at Levi half-heartedly, and huffed.

"Seriously? All this so you could have your name on my butt?" 

Levi just smirked in reply. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahaha, yet more self-indulgent cute modern AU boyfriend stuff. These two break my heart so often, it's only fair that I get to make them do stupid things like go shop for clothes together.


	15. Bus Adventures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren takes the bus. It's crowded. He trips.

Eren  _stumbles_ , tripping as the bus jerked, and his arms flail about, torn between keeping his hold on his books and throwing themselves out to try and grab at a pole to balance, and he knows he’s probably going to faceplant spectacularly onto the floor. 

He braces himself for the impact, but none comes. Instead he feels an arm around his waist and another arm pressing his books back against his chest, and Eren twists around to look bewilderedly at the man who’s essentially caught him in his arms. 

"Oh, shit- sorry," he stammers, thrown off guard by how  _gorgeous_  the man is- all pale lines and dark hair, fine features arranged into a bland, indifferent expression. 

"Thanks for um, catching me." He mumbles, still caught within the span of the shorter man’s arms as passengers around them press him into a corner. Eren blushes hard, but his saviour seems to be unperturbed by his proximity. In fact, Eren thinks he can see the slight catch of a smirk on those thin lips.

When there is slightly more space around them, the man pulls his arms back from around Eren, leaning back to rest one elbow on the railing of the bus.   
"No problem, kid," he says easily, glancing at Eren. 

Eren abruptly hopes that whatever clothes he’d thrown on in the morning on were presentable.

The bus groans as it stops, doors opening to let more commuters clamber in. The bus is already packed to begin with, and the new additions only manage to jostle Eren so that he ends up pressed close to the short man from before, again.

"Sorry," he mumbles, cheeks tinting pink. 

"It’s fine, relax," comes the smooth reply, and Eren manages not to blush harder, somehow. "Are you taking the bus to the interchange?" the man asks. 

When Eren nods, the man shifts a little so he’s a bit more comfortable, and glances up to Eren again before speaking, “So am I… looks like we’ll be here for a while.” 

Eren fidgets, embarrassed but at the same time hopeful in the way young twenty-somethings always are when encountering gorgeous strangers. 

"I’m Eren, by the way," he offers, a little shyly.

A slim eyebrow perks up, and a curve of lips before the answer, “Levi.” comes.

—-

When the bus stops at the interchange, Eren has a slip of paper with Levi’s number shoved into his pocket. 


	16. Hateful Letters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren stumbles across some anonymous letters on Levi's desk. They're vile and hateful, and he feels bile rising in his throat at the words.

Eren was tidying up the Corporal’s office when he saw the letters scattered haphazardly over the desk. Frowning thoughtfully - Corporal Levi was  _never_  so messy with his things - he went to straighten them up, trying not to read the words on paper out of a respect for his Corporal’s privacy. That is, until he saw his name in one of them, jumping out from the mass of words. Unable to help himself, he scanned the letter, which looked like it came from an anonymous member of the public.  
  
It was someone who was obviously displeased with Levi, and the letter started out unpleasant, calling Levi all manner of slurs and insinuating sick, terrible things about Levi and Eren’s relationship, that it was abusive, that Eren was probably being manipulated and taken advantage of by his commanding officer - a quick glance at the other letters revealed that they were all of the same vein, death threats and hatred pouring off the smooth, cream paper and well calligraphed black ink.  
  
  
He felt sick by the time he was done reading, hot, angry tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.   
  
Distantly, he heard the click of the door, and Levi’s name calling softly to him, then once more, with more irritation.  
  
"Hey brat, didn’t anyone teach you not to rifle through people’s stuff, you should know better," Levi started, frowning at the boy who hadn’t turned back to him or gotten flustered like Levi had expected him to.   
  
"Eren?" he said, walking closer upon seeing the tense line of those familiar shoulders.   
  
"What’s wron- oh. Ah, shit, I take it you read those letters." he said flatly, mentally kicking himself for leaving them so carelessly in the open - should have known that Eren would have found them eventually. He walked up to Eren and pulled the letter gently out of Eren’s hands, turning the boy so he was facing him.   
  
"Corporal - how long have you been getting these letters?" The boy asked, eyes bright and lips pressed in an unhappy line. Levi looked to the side, unwilling to meet Eren’s eyes.   
  
"A while," he admitted. He watched as Eren tried to make sense of this information, watched as guilt began to creep up on the boy.   
  
"Eren," he said, tone commanding in a way that had the boy looking at him and straightening instinctively. The sight made his mouth pull sideways and upwards. "Do you believe what those letters are saying?"

  
The boy jerked back angrily, eyes shining with disbelief and anger. “Of course not! Corporal, how could they say such things about you, about us-“   
Levi stilled him with a palm on his chest, over his heart. “Do you think I am taking advantage of you?” he asked softly.   
  
Eren shook his head, unhappy.  
  
"Am I abusing you?"  
  
Again, Eren shook his head, a soft and tender ‘No’ on his lips.   
  
"Do you trust me, Eren?"  
  
At this, Eren pressed closer, tenderness and determination in his eyes. “Always, Corporal.  _Always_.”   
  
Levi smiled a little, at that. “Then, that’s all that matters. What we have is between us and us alone - and no amount of angry letters from those pigs in the inner cities can change that.” He pulled the boy close, tucking his head under his chin and pressing a soft kiss to the top of Eren’s head.   
  
Eren pressed his nose against the warm skin of Levi’s neck, still feeling ruffled and angry despite the Corporal’s reassurances. These people knew nothing about him or Levi - only saw him as Humanities Strongest, and Eren as the Titan Shifter, pieces in their chess games, and not actual human beings. They didn’t know how Corporal Levi took care of his squad, didn’t know how he clutched the bloodied hands of his dying comrades, didn’t know his bad shit jokes and the way he held Eren at night, holding his hands away from his teeth when he thrashed in fear - and Eren couldn’t bear to see those angry black letters swirling in his mind’s eye, smearing the name of his beloved Corporal without so much of a care for anybody’s feelings. As though their opinions had any weight in their military world, where every day alive (and uneaten) was counted as a lucky one. As though them in all their powdered, self-indulgent luxury knew anything about the two of them.  
  
"They don’t - they  _can’t_  -” he mumbled angrily into the skin, and Levi shushed him, hands stroking down his back.

 

"They can’t, Eren. They can’t touch us. I’ve got you." soothed Levi, and he sighed with relief as the tension from the boy’s back began to ease as Eren slumped against Levi’s stronger frame, hands bunched in the fabric of Levi’s shirt as though Eren was afraid that he would be snatched away from him at any moment.

 

Levi pulled back gently and tilted the boy’s chin up, kissing him softly before speaking, tone wry, “C’mon kid. We’ve got work to do. We can burn that shit together later.” 

 

Eren laughed at that, the sound easing the tension in the room. He pressed his forehead against Levi’s briefly, silent thanks in his gaze. They left the office together, Eren close to his Corporal and love burning strong in his chest, the letters crumpled at the bottom of the wastepaper basket, forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So everyone can probably guess what inspired me to write this. Anyways, I stumbled onto the ereri tag on tumblr one day (I usually don't track tags because I follow existing blogs for my ereri needs) and the amount of shit I saw there was disconcerting. So I wrote this. Thanks for reading, I hope all of you are doing well.


	17. Figure Drawing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren gets distracted in figure drawing class.

There is a senior that joins in Eren’s freshman figure drawing class sometimes, just to practice.

He’s called Levi, and seems to be on good terms with professor Smith. Eren has peeked at his newsprint during breaks, marvelling at the crisp but fluid lines spreading across the paper, casting light and shadow artfully even during short gestures.

And as though that didn’t convince Eren that this short, intimidating man was extremely skilled, the senior always wore a crisp white shirt, and at the end of every session not a single smudge of charcoal was on his skin or clothes.

Eren really wants to ask him how he gets such a soft look with his charcoal, but is too intimidated to approach the short, pale student.

He satisfies himself instead with drawing Levi instead of the model sometimes, distracted by fine features and smooth skin. He stops, though, mortified and embarrassed when Professor Smith tells him to focus on the model with a knowing look in his eyes.

Later on, when peeking at Levi’s newsprint as usual, Eren finds what looks suspiciously like his profile etched softly in charcoal in a corner of the paper.

He looks up and meets Professor Smith’s amused gaze, and hurries out of the drawing studio, red in his cheeks and warmth in his chest.


	18. Summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heat.

It is Summer, and the heat and the humidity of the weather cannot be escaped. Levi thinks summer might be the death of him, because while he is able to withstand the heat with remarkable indifference, Eren has taken to circumventing his own discomfort the traditional way.

Namely, he wears less clothing. 

Eren himself is lying on the grass in a sleeveless shirt that’s raked up over his stomach, and there, a smooth expanse of muscle and curves, and a tempting trail of hair. Somewhere in the background, he hears Jean’s groaning about the heat for the umpteenth time. He ignores it, distracted as he is by the tanned sprawl of green-eyed boy before him. 

Summer suits the boy, he thinks as he watches those tanned arms stretch over the boy’s head as Eren stretches. His eyes follow the path of a bead of sweat on Eren’s neck hungrily, and he cannot help but admire the newly golden tone of that unblemished skin, and how much brighter it makes Eren’s eyes look. 

He notices a few freckles on that smooth neck, damp with sweat, brown hair plastered against that vulnerable nape. This should normally have Levi recoiling, his own instinct against the unclean kicking in - but it doesn’t, and it only brings to mind the image of nectar, damp on soft petals. The heat must be getting to him, he thinks, and unbuttons the second button of his shirt, cravat abandoned in favour of not wilting under the unforgiving sun. 

At this action, Eren jerks a little strangely, and Levi raises an eyebrow at the Titan-shifter, curiosity piqued at the flush that’s blooming on those gorgeous, damp cheeks.

Levi  _wants._  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something short to pass the time - I haven't been writing much. :T


	19. Insomnia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some nights, they just can't fall asleep.

Some nights Eren just can’t sleep, and it frustrates him to no end because training is always hard, and his body is always exhausted, but his mind won’t let him rest.

Sometimes Levi pulls him close and presses calloused fingers into the the tense points in his neck, unspooling his muscles until he’s all pliant and drowsy.

The corporal pulls Eren onto his lap, and strokes his forehead slowly. (The first time Eren got so embarrassed he kept trying to get up and Levi had to threaten to throw him out of the bed if he didn’t stop fidgeting.)

Eren’s mother used to do this when he was a child, and Eren doesn’t know Levi seemed to know that it’d work, but it does, and he finds himself drifting off to sleep, 0400 hours in the morning, head pillowed in his corporal’s lap.

 

\---

 

  
Levi has trouble sleeping, most of the time. Anyone who looked at his face and noted the shadows under his eyes would know it.

Most nights his head is full of memories and strategies, mixing and expanding till his head feels fit to burst. He knows that there isn’t much he can do about it, so he is surprised when Eren enters his life and seems to help, a little.

The boy brings him tea, sneaking into the kitchen at ridiculous hours in the night, peppermint for when his head is pounding, chamomile when they have any.

He sits and nuzzles into Levi’s neck like Levi is some stuffed animal for children to hold onto, and Levi really should be bothered by that. He isn’t, though, he sits and let’s the Titan shifter hold him close and touch him, and he let’s those smooth, tanned fingers anchor him on nights where sleep is a prospect worse than hell.

Some nights, Levi pulls Eren into his lap and strokes his forehead, copying the motion he’d seem the Ackerman girl do for Eren in his fevered, injured state. He pulls the hair back from that normally furrowed brow, and watches as tension eases from the boy and Eren falls asleep, 0400 hours in the morning.

Some mornings, Levi wakes up with Eren’s head pillowed on his lap, neck aching but surprisingly well rested.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is what happens when I can't fall asleep - I get inspired. Also... these look way longer when on tumblr! >_>


	20. Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You find Eren outside in the middle of the night, head haloed by the moonlight, shoulders hunched.

  
It’s late, and the air is still and humid, the soft sounds of bugs and other nocturnal animals shifting in the woods as you make your way across the grass. Sitting on a boulder, hair lit by the moonlight, is Eren, hunched up in his nightclothes, staring blankly up at the sky.

"Eren. Why aren’t you asleep?" you ask as you approach. You don’t sleep very well on most nights, anyways, and you’d noticed Eren sitting by himself when you glanced out of the window in your office. 

Eren stiffens and turns to face you, face flushing guiltily as though afraid of being reprimanded. 

"Corporal," he greets softly, "I couldn’t sleep, I’m sorry - I’ll head back inside now." 

You shake your head - and he stills, scooting to the side a little when you join him on the boulder. Even from here, shoulder to shoulder, you can feel the warmth of his body, and it seems to seep into your skin. 

'Do you think we'll ever win, sir?” he asks, voice cutting into the comfortable silence between the two of you. 

You turn to face him, and it’s a mistake, because those eyes are wide and searching when they meet yours, he’s closer than you’d expected, and for a moment you can hardly catch your breath, stunned by the expression on his face - it’s so vulnerable - it’s no wonder that you’ve never seen it before now, the boy is more prone to anger and determination when in the presence of his squad mates. 

But here, alone with you, he allows this. You’re not sure what to make of that - or indeed, how it makes you feel. 

You weigh his question, and settle ( _as always)_  for honesty.

"I don’t know, Eren." 

He smiles at that, strangely - a small half twist of those lips that makes your heart lurch. He looks like he expected that answer, like he’s grateful that you’re not lying to him. 

"When we win," he begins, and despite yourself you feel warmed by his words and his usual determination.  _(Most days the look in his eyes is enough to stoke the dying embers of your hope - how apt, given the name the public has given him.)_

 _“_ When we win, I’m going to search for the ocean.”

You turn to him, puzzled. The ocean - it’s a word you’ve heard before, it rings a bell but you’re not sure what it is. Rather than mull over it, you take the bait and ask. 

"What is that?" Your voice is soft, and his reply is even softer as he scoots closer to you, the usual shyness in his movements absent.

"Armin told me about it - it’s this huge body of salt-water, so big that you can’t see the ends. His books had a drawing of it - just water as far as the eye can see." 

Talking about this seems to have cheered him up a little, and you decide you like the look on his face much better than the one he had before. You feel your lips tugging to the side, and you suppress the urge to smile but it’s too late, Eren’s seen it and he’s smiling back, soft and shy. 

"When we win," he murmurs, leaning towards you slowly - like he’s afraid you’ll bolt - or more likely, kick him - till his forehead is pressed into your shoulder.

"Will you come with me?" he speaks into the cloth of your shirt, but even muffled the question rings clear. He knows what he’s asking - and you can’t promise it - you can’t promise that you’ll still be alive there at the end of everything. Somehow you don’t doubt his survival, but your own death is something you’ve long accepted, and you’re not in the habit of making false promises. 

He seems to know what you’re thinking, because he’s gripping tightly onto your forearms, and you can see the restraint in his arms as he tries not to latch onto you and pull you close. You sigh and open your mouth to speak before you pause, noticing that his hands are trembling against your arm, and his shoulders are bowed with the weight of the world. 

"Alright. I’ll come with you, Eren." you say softly, and you know it’s uncharacteristic of you - but faced with this beautiful  _breaking_  boy, you cannot help but give in. If these words are what Eren Jaeger needs, you are compelled to provide them to him. If the boy takes comfort in your presence and falls apart in the dead of the night only with you - that’s fine, because Eren is here, and you’re quite possibly in love with him. 

He looks up at you then, hands still wrapped around your arm, and those blue-green eyes are bright below wet lashes as they look at you. You catch yourself thinking you’d like to see the ocean if he was next to you, and you recognise that it’s a dangerous thought. When he leans in again, upwards this time, you catch yourself thinking that if you never see the ocean it’s okay, because for some reason you’re sure it looks just like his eyes - blue-green and beautiful. 


	21. Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi is dying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING FOR MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH! 
> 
> (I'm aware that some might want to avoid this chapter if that's the case!)

  
"Eren, it’s okay. You have to go." 

Levi’s voice is weak, and it is all Eren can do to keep from sobbing against him. There is blood everywhere, one of Levi’s legs was bitten off at the thigh, and despite wrapping the limb the blood flow wouldn’t cease. It was a particularly gruesome sight - Eren kneeling over Levi’s body in a field, soaked in his captain’s blood.

"C-Corporal, we’re going to get you back, you’re going to be fine." he said, fat tears spilling from his eyes to splash against Levi’s blood-splattered cheeks. Levi huffed, eyes fluttering with the effort of speaking again.

"No you’re not - Eren, we both knew this was coming. You need to get back, finish the mission. We’re almost there - you’re almost there."

Blood loss and the surety of his death had stripped Levi of all his usual defences, and he didn’t bother to hide the affection in his voice or expression. 

"Eren, look at me."

Eren’s face was streaked with grime and tears, and those eyes were pleading as the boy’s hands frantically worked to stop the bleeding from his various wounds.

"I - can’t. Corporal, I need you to be alive - I- can’t do this without you!" By this point he was all but pleading, and Levi smiled, but didn’t reply, breaths getting shorter as he struggled to stay conscious, anything to keep looking at Eren’s face, beautiful and  _alive._

 _"It’s worth it, if I saved Eren."_ Levi thought, and that knowledge settled as peace in his bones. 

"Cor- Levi," began Eren, head haloed against the Sun, the most beautiful thing Levi had ever seen, "You must know by now. I’ve gotta say this or I’ll always regret it." He grit his teeth. Levi knew what was coming, braced himself for the wrench in his chest when the words came.

"Levi, I love you. Please, I -" 

The hand gripping Levi’s tightens, and the feeling of a bloody palm against his is a familiar one, though usually it’s not Levi’s hands that are twitching weakly and desperate. 

Eren’s leaning down now, more tears striking Levi’s face as he presses his lips to Levi’s, chaste and heartbreakingly gentle. Levi smiles against his teeth, and the cold settling into him seems to abate after Eren’s warmth. Always Eren’s warmth. 

"I’m going to find you again, Corporal. I’m always going to find you again." The determination is back in those eyes, and Levi is at their mercy. 

"How could you -" Levi starts, cut off by more blood getting stuck in his throat. He feels Eren’s hands soothing his brow, pulling his hair away from clammy skin as he kisses Levi’s forehead, again, again,  _again._

 _“_ I’ll always find you, Corporal.” Eren is holding him close now, hands on his face as he presses his lips to Levi’s forehead and stays there, breathing hitched and grief already starting to bow his shoulders. 

Levi takes the last of his strength to press his face up, to inhale for one last time the smell of Eren, warm and alive. 

"I’ll wait for you, then, brat." He mumbles into Eren’s skin, and Eren’s shoulders are shaking with mirth and horror as he laughs. "But in this life, you better win." 

He nods, loyalty burning strong in his eyes, and Levi knows with absolute certainty that Eren will bring humanity’s victory - knows that when Eren promises this to him as he slips away, it will be fulfilled. Yet another thing he can leave to Eren - the fight, his squad, and now even the next life, if there ever was one. 

"Eren, I’m cold," He murmurs, even with Eren’s warmth pressed into him he’s so cold, and Levi thought he’d prepared for this, but somehow, he  _wants_  to live, he wants this life instead of promises of the next, and bitterness wells up in his chest as he looks at Eren’s crying face. 

Eren settles close, trying to warm his Corporal up even as he knows what’s going to happen, soon. He looks at Levi’s steel-grey eyes and holds their gaze, a thousand unspoken words hanging between them. 

 _I love you_ , he murmurs over and over into Levi’s skin, grips his hands tighter when Levi doesn’t have the strength to grip back, and when Levi finally slips away, eyes sliding closed  _(Eren is glad for this - he doesn’t want to see those eyes, open but glassy)_  and a surprisingly peaceful expression on his face, Eren holds the small body close, presses his face into the coarse green cloth of the Scouting Legion mantle, and lets the sobs wrack his body as he mourns the death of his superior officer, his friend, his protector, the person he loved.

* * *

When Mikasa and Armin find him later, they see him pressing Levi’s swords into his hands and kissing his forehead one last time. Eren’s face is tear streaked but he’s calm, and even through the grief they see passion in his eyes - an unwavering determination to defeat the Titans burning in them.


	22. Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are stars, overhead and in his eyes.

The air is crisp and biting but there are stars, bright and infinite in the night sky. Eren sits on the grass, shoulders hunched a little awkwardly as he regards Levi, who is standing stiffly a little way from him.

A few days back, Eren had said something he’d immediately regretted, and Levi had narrowed his gaze and brushed past him without a word. The icy silence had lasted a few days, until Eren had cornered him on campus one night and pleaded with the shorter male come with him. Levi had regarded him coolly for a few moments, and nodded. They’d walked out into the nearby field in silence, neither knowing quite what to say. 

He decides to just get it over and done with, “I’m sorry,” he blurts out, and Levi sighs like he knew this was coming. Eren plows on, “I’m really fucking sorry Levi, I can’t take back what I said, I know, but fuck, I swear-“

Eren’s frustrated apology is cut off when Levi holds out a palm, and he opens his mouth again but Levi cuts him off. 

"Eren. It’s okay. It’s fine, I know." Levi’s face is nearly expressionless, but even so Eren feels himself sag with relief at the words - the few days without even a word from Levi had loneliness growing deep and wide inside him - so close to the anniversary of his mother’s death, he’d felt the familiar stirrings of grief and self-loathing rising up to eat at him.

He buries face in his hands before asking, “Won’t you sit?” At Levi’s raised eyebrow, he shrugs off his varsity jacket, spreading it out on the grass beside him and patting it invitingly. Levi looks torn between disbelief that Eren would do such a thing to his own clothing, and pleased that Eren would do such a thing to his own clothing. The older male wordlessly shuffles to sit on the jacket-turned-mat, and the bumping of their shoulders makes Eren’s chest tug painfully with relief, even as he fights to tamp down the hammering of his heart at the proximity. 

Eren had spent the better part of the semester in admiration and infatuation with the senior, first falling in love with his art and then actually being fond of the other student as a friend - Levi appeared to tolerate his company, and honestly, Eren never wanted to ever let his crush see the light of day, because he probably had a snowball’s chance in hell - but as the days went by and Levi’s insults started to sound endearing to him, he knew he was fucked - a disconcertingly large portion of his days were spent with his mind on Levi, his voice and pale hands and his unexpected kindness - Eren needed to know, while trusting that Levi wouldn’t be weird about it. Steeling his resolve, he turns to face the object of his affections.

"Levi. I need to say something." he said.

Levi turned, exasperated, and Eren shook his head, indicating that he wasn’t going to apologise again.

"Levi, I think I’m a little in love with you," he says, words leaving his mouth in a rush.

He is steadfastly failing to meet his friend’s gaze, “I know I probably don’t have a chance, but uh, shit. Sorry, I just wanted to say it, I don’t even fucking know why…” Eren looks away, dragging a hand through his hair in frustration and mortification. Levi has gone still beside him, and even though Eren has faith in their friendship, he’s not sure he’s prepared for what is sure to be an extremely uncomfortable social interaction. ‘ _Fuck, why did I even chose to do this out here in the middle of nowhere? Getting back to our dorms is going to be awkward as fuck.’_ he thought furiously.

'Eren,' Levi says, voice carefully level. Eren turns to face him, to finally meet that steely gaze that he has emphatically not fallen in love with. The look on Levi's face is indecipherable, and the green-eyed boy fidgets a little nervously, apologies slipping out of his lips. Levi shifts to lean into Eren's space, hand moving to brace himself on the grass. Somewhere at the back of his mind Eren is internally screaming because Levi just  _touched damp grass and soil holy fucking shit something bad is going to happen -_ but he’s too busy being utterly dumbstruck by the proximity of Levi’s face, the brightness in those hooded, glinting eyes, and the softness in the curve of that mouth that’s —

 _Oh._  

Levi’s mouth is soft and pressing against Eren’s, and Eren cannot do anything, shocked as he is, so Levi pulls back, expression soft and fond and  _foreign_  (but not unwelcome) as he regards Eren’s utter shock. 

"You fucking idiot," he says, voice low and soft and bending on a chuckle, and it’s the insult that reboots Eren’s brain, and the tips of his ears are pink and he is fiercely glad that it’s dark, because he’s utterly red now, hands grasping out for Levi and finding him, warm and solid and real. 

"I - you?" he is incoherent, but Levi just pushes closer and breathes his air like he’s wanted this, wanted  _Eren_ , and the thought makes Eren dizzy. 

"Yes," he answers simply, and Eren’s is cold and freezing ever since his jacket became a mat for Levi, but there is warmth exploding in his heart at that single syllable, suffusing his torso and warming his cheeks. 

He laughs, then, the weeks tensions and old hurts loosening in his chest. “I’m such a fucking idiot,” he huffs, ducking his head down in an attempt to be closer to Levi. 

Levi kisses him again, then, amused and lighter than Eren had ever seen the man. The force behind those thin lips catches Eren off gaurd, and he buckles a little, catching himself by his elbows on soft grass. Levi says nothing, eyes glinting as he manoeuvres Eren on his back, sitting on the taller male so that the least possible amount of Levi was touching the damp grass beneath them.

Eren huffs in mock irritation, head pillowed on soft grass as he looked up at Levi crouched over him, and the infinite black sky specked with stars behind him. The sight made his throat close up, fondness and affection welling up inside him uncomfortably. Levi seems to notice, and leans down to press his forehead against Eren’s and kiss him lightly, again and again until Eren was pliant and relaxed beneath him. 

They stay like that for what feels like hours, quiet and intimate as they felt the edges of their friendship expend into a new space. Eren held onto Levi the best he could, pressing close, thinking of the stars overhead, and the silence stretching wide and soft around them.

 


	23. Teeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Vampire AU where Levi is a vampire and tells Eren, but Eren doesn’t even bat an eyelash, just agrees and moves on to another topic.

"Okay, but you still haven’t answered my question. Will you go out with me?" Eren asked.

Levi  _stared._

"Eren," he said very slowly, "I just told you I was a vampire." at Eren’s raised eyebrow, he continued, "I just told you I was a vampire -  _a blood sucking predator that could kill you_ , never mind that you didn’t even ask if I was insane, but is the pertinent question here really whether I’ll date you?” 

Eren looked at Levi like he was a bit dumb, and honestly Levi was starting to get exasperated because that really should have been his position. The boy hadn’t even pulled a single joke about how Levi must have been overworking himself. Eren huffed, approaching Levi. 

"Well," he says, like he’s explaining something particularly difficult to a small child, "It’s not like you’re going to hurt me." 

Levi is more than a bit shocked. It’s been a few centuries since his eyes have been that wide, and if it were any other time Levi would appreciate that it was always Eren who managed to surprise him. The trust Eren has in him is astounding, and Levi is a little touched, even though the more cynical majority of his brain is scoffing at how stupid the boy is for trusting something as dangerous as him. 

"I really like you, and I don’t really see how this vampire thing has anything to do with it." 

Scratch that, the boy really is stupid. Levi furrows his brows in irritation at Eren, but he only steps closer, daringly. “Eren,” Levi warns, but before he knows it there are tanned fingers on his chin, skittering across his skin to rest against his lips. 

 

"Do you have fangs?" Eren asks, eyes wide and curious as he leans close. 

 

By this point Levi has resigned himself to the fact that Eren doesn’t really give two shits about the fact that he’s a vampire, and that the brat was going to be his usual irritating self regardless. Some part of Levi is rather taken with the nonchalance of the boy, but that part has been labelled an idiot because it’s also irrevocably in love with a 22-year-old college student.  He tilts his head to the side and opens his mouth, letting his fangs lengthen as he pulls his lips from his gums. Eren does look a little shocked, and Levi looks up at him a little smugly. 

 

"Holy shit, you really weren’t joking."

Levi laughs a little at that, thrown off guard by the unsolvable puzzle that is Eren Jaeger, and flashes his teeth right at the boy’s face. Little shit doesn’t even flinch. He retracts his fangs, then, and answers Eren’s question.

"Sure." 

Eren looks at him, face adorably confused for a moment before those green eyes widen and he’s gaping at Levi now.

"As in, yes? Yes like yes you’ll go out with me?" he asks, looking lost and hopeful all at once. Levi sighs at the wording, but nods. He’d lived for centuries, kept his identity secret with great pains, and when he finally found  _one_ human being he decided to confess his identity to, the little idiot didn’t even bat an eyelash. It was… anticlimatic, to say the least. On another hand, Levi knew then and there that Eren Jaeger was the only one in the world who would have reacted like that - with utter trust, no judgement, and perhaps a stupid lack of self-preservation. He loved the little shit already. 

He reaches out to pull Eren close, taking the blushing boy’s face in his hands as he kisses him softly. When Eren gasps in surprise, Levi darts his tongue out to run against those wet lips, before nipping gently at Eren’s lower lip. Eren shudders a little as he pulls back, and he laughs a little, warm breath ghosting over Levi’s skin. 

"Hey, mind the teeth, Levi," Eren says, green eyes light with mischief. Levi groans but he can’t help himself from pulling Eren close again. 


	24. Charcoal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi draws Eren.

  
"Stay still, Eren." Levi says, tone slightly stern, and Eren stills accordingly. He’s seated comfortably enough, head angled to the side as he looks out the window. It’s all he can do not to fidget, so Eren lets his mind drift off, mentally focusing on the sound of the charcoal in Levi’s hands scraping against the paper.

For the longest time there is only breath in the silent room, and some part of Eren is still amazed that he’s here, in Corporal Levi’s room, that his bumbling confession had actually been reciprocated by the object of his affections - that Levi would, after a few weeks, ask Eren if he would sit for him, just for an hour - that they could have this silence between them, the golden light from the afternoon sun slanting through the window. 

When Levi leans back, pale hands dark but white shirt still pristine, Eren slides out of his seat and stretches, popping out the kinks in his back as he approaches Levi.

"Can I look?" He asks tentatively. He’s pretty sure Levi would let him, but it’s hard to not be deferential out of instinct. Levi doesn’t say anything, just nods and tilts the board with the drawing towards Eren, his expression blank, but Eren can see that there the furrow in Levi’s brow is just a bit deeper than usual. He tries not to smile at the sight - it would get him killed, for sure - and glances down to see what the Corporal has drawn.

It’s… beautiful. 

Eren is speechless - not particularly because of the impeccable - though it really is - technique of Levi’s hand, but at how beautiful the drawing is. He is not, by far, a beautiful human being (a part of him would even say he’s sometimes not even really a human being), but this is him drawn like he’s beautiful, and the dips and curves and the soft smudge of lines into shadow has captured his face in stunning likeness, though he is sure his cheekbones are not so high, his eyes not that clear - but there he is, looking out of a window, light sliding into his charcoaled eyes - it’s beautiful, and Eren feels a lump in his throat forming because it occurs to him that maybe this is how Levi sees him - like he’s something worth looking at for the better part of an hour. 

He places the board down carefully, and shuffles closer to Levi, who is watching him slightly warily, slim eyebrows raised at Eren’s obvious silence. 

"It’s beautiful," Eren says, already expecting Levi’s scoff. He pulls those charcoal-smudged hands towards him, ignoring Levi’s protest about dirt on his uniform, holds those pale, beautiful hands in his and pulls Levi close, just to breathe his air and feel thankful that they both have this, that Eren has Levi and the silence and the afternoons together for as long as they’re alive. 

Levi exhales loudly in exasperation, but he seems to have caught Eren’s mood, because he leans in to butt at Eren’s head lightly with his own, and he mutters against Eren’s lips, words so totally unexpected but they ignite such warmth in Eren’s chest, “That’s just because you’re beautiful, you idiot.” 

Eren laughs, light and bubbly and he kisses Levi, and for the longest time it’s just them, breathing and the golden light blurring the edges of the room they’re in.

When they pull apart, Eren’s hands are smudged a sooty black.


	25. Aquila

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are constellations on Eren's back, Levi is sure.

Slowly peeling the shirt of Eren’s back, Levi paused, hands absently skimming across the newly-revealed tanned skin. Eren shivered delightfully under the touch, glancing back nervously at Levi’s sudden silence and lack of movement, when he’d recently been laving his tongue over the back of Eren’s neck.

Levi glanced up to meet his eyes, green and half lidden, and said simply, “The moles on your back.” 

Eren hummed in confusion, not really understanding. “What about them?” he asked, unsure.

Levi shrugged, a pale finger tracing a path from one freckle to another. His hands were cold, and Eren sucked in a breath. 

"I used to go stargazing quite a lot," Levi said, his voice quiet like it always was, but in the dimness of the room, Eren caged between Levi’s legs, cool hands on his back, the mood was still and soft, like any word might break the strange mood that had seemed to come over his new lover. 

"This looks like a constellation." A palm pressing over a spot on his spine, pressing the skin and shifting the vertebrae under it slightly. 

"From here, Altair," The sound of shifting, and then soft lips on his back, kissing the warm skin lightly. 

Levi’s hands smoothed up Eren’s ribs, to thumb at his scapula, fingers smoothing against the freckled skin. “To here, Vega.” Again, soft lips on his right, hot breath against his skin as Eren fought to stay still. 

"There’s a story that these two are lovers, you know." 

Levi leaned back up to mouth at Eren’s neck, laving the skin and scraping his teeth over the curve of his shoulder. “You’re beautiful,” he murmured right into the skin, hand still pressed over Vega on Eren’s back.


	26. The Ocean Cannot Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eren is a god and Levi's here to kill him.

_He looks awfully human_ , is what Levi thinks when he sees the god. He looks like a boy, like the ones running in the village at noon. Levi had expected something more… Majestic.  
  
But then the boy-god turns and again, Levi is expecting something extraordinary, but no, it’s just brown skin and brown hair like any other villager’s- but Levi will admit that those eyes are something. He’s only ever seen brown eyes and sometimes blue, when he’s in the city, but these are like jewels in shallow pools of water. They’re beautiful, and Levi abruptly regrets the fact that he’s been hired to kill this god.  
  
Humanity’s strongest, they call him.  _Godkiller_ , they whisper, as he travels from country to country, murdering deities so kings may take their treasure.  
  
As it turns out, all those little gods he’d been neatly putting away couldn’t compare to the one with the brown skin and green eyes, those giant serpents and monstrous, huge antlered beasts far less than the one steaming gently after he’d cut off an arm. The arm grew back in a few hours, and Levi’s shock had him sitting on the hard stone floor of the temple while the boy cheerfully munched on an apple.  
  
"You can’t kill me, you know" the boy says, looking at him with those green-gold-blue eyes, "You can’t kill the sea."  
  
The god tosses an apple at him and walks away, bronzed back on full display as he disappears into the inner sanctums.  
  
Levi grits his teeth and decides to try again tomorrow.  


* * *

  
Tomorrow passes, and another, and Levi still hasn’t gotten any closer to killing the god. At this point it’s more a matter of pride than anything, really, so when he manages to trap the boy, wires and metal and rope on each beautiful, tanned limb, he snarls out incantations and binding spells, calls for the sons of Poseidon to bind him, but the boy just laughs, staring at Levi evenly, utterly calm because they both know that Levi can’t kill him. Levi is too mortal and this creature pinned down before him is far from vulnerable.  
  
The boy invites him to dinner that night, and Levi stays, mainly because he can’t go back to the city without completing his assignment.  
  
The god has a name, as it turns out - Eren - Levi rolls the name around in his tongue a few times, and Eren looks pleased.  
  
"What language is it from?"  
  
Eren laughs, “A dead one.”

* * *

 

He stays at the temple, and tells himself that it’s because studying Eren will eventually provide an answer as to how to kill him, and ignores the peace settling in his chest when he wakes up to the ocean glittering before him.  
  
He takes to watching Eren, listens to him talk to the gulls and watches the gold burnished form walking between tall pale columns and tries to remember why he’d thought Eren just looked like a village boy- ordinary.  
  
Except, Eren is kind and young and ancient and when the god coaxes him into joining him by the fire on a particularly cold night he asks Eren questions and hears stories about the world before the one he knows. He’s heard and read about the past, of course, but Eren adds stupid details like plumbing being terrible and how everything was green and then red and black and barren and now it’s green again - the boy talks about the earth and the sky and how he had a family, once.  
  
Levi snorts, and says that finally they have something in common.

 

* * *

 

When Eren startles a laugh out of Levi, he looks shocked, eyes impossibly wide, gold in the firelight, and his face softens and he’s smiling, mouth happy and open, teeth pearly and straight, and now Levi is the one that’s shocked, surprised that a being so ancient still can laugh like a child on his birthday.  


* * *

  
His shirt is destroyed and dirty so he strips it off, and that’s usually fine but it’s summer, and his skin is so pale it sunburns easily. Eren laughs, as he always does, and returns with linens, white and clean and cool.  
  
"Now we match." He says, regarding Levi draped in cloth that’s definitely from a century ago.  


* * *

 

When Levi wanders the temple, he finds his swords again. The blades are still sharp and un-rusted, inscriptions stark and proud on the cold steel. He runs his fingers up and down them, remembering the weight and feel of them, the sensation of paring flesh down to the bone. He wonders idly if he misses it - the complete and utter confidence in himself and his own abilities, but before he can come to an answer he hears the jangling of bracelets. He turns around, and sure enough, Eren is there, standing still and looking at him, eyes wide and a little bit hurt, even as his body stands unguarded while Levi is armed.

"Do you still want to kill me?" Eren asks, head tilted to one side. There’s gold around his neck in neat circles, and Levi’s never been a victim of avarice but the desire burning in him isn’t one for treasure. 

"Not really," he says, stepping closer, one sword still in hand, "Not anymore."

Eren lets him. “I could tell you how,” he murmurs, eyes not looking at the metal in Levi’s pale hands, “I could teach you how to kill me.” 

Their breaths are mingling, now, and they’re in the shade but Eren’s eyes are still burning gold-green-blue, and Levi abruptly remembers that night by the fire, listening to Eren talk about his family and his friends, remembers the dead, deprecating look in Eren’s eyes when he’d once asked what the god did to pass the time.

"Do you want to die?" he asks.

Eren’s eyes flutter shut, lashes resting atop his cheekbones. 

"Not anymore," he whispers, pulling at the linen of Levi’s borrowed clothes. 

The sound of metal clattering against tile seems to echo for a long time.

* * *

 

 _Still awfully human_ , Levi thinks as he regards the ancient boy spread before him, white linen pushed haphazardly aside to reveal yet more tanned, golden skin. Eren’s flushed beautifully, and Levi takes his time tasting him, salt and ocean on his tongue as Eren calls out his name,  _Levi, Levi, Levi._

 

* * *

 

They go down to the village sometimes in disguise, they sell fruit and Eren makes friends with the old ladies that always remark that the fruit from their cart always tastes the best. 

They go to the sea, and Eren shows him caves hidden beneath the surface, wraps an arm around Levi’s waist as he manipulates the water to part, to lower, to reveal tunnels and underground pools of impossible beauty. 

"Amazing, isn’t it?" says Eren, bright and happy like a child showing off his secret-hiding place.

Levi hums in agreement and pulls Eren in for a kiss. 

 

* * *

 

When he looks at Eren, he still looks like a human kid to him. He’s gorgeous, though, against the backdrop of the shoreline behind him, sand crusted against his legs. He’s brown and gold and terribly old, and sometimes uses phrases that really make no sense in the common tongue. But he’s also quite the teenager, and Levi likes him best when he’s acting like a human kid, kind of clumsy and shy and easily embarrassed. Levi’s swords are rusted now, and on nights that he wakes up violent and lashing out Eren just pulls him close and flops over him, the imprint of gold bracelets pressing into Levi’s cheek.

He wonders, not for the first time, if this is what love is supposed to be, a deep seated sense of contentment, the likes of which he has never felt before. Eren is safe and here and can’t possibly die before him, so Levi tries not to think about whatever this is between them dying.

 _After all,_  he thinks,  _You can’t kill the sea._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god this is so long and convoluted I don’t even know. It was just hot today and I was making pasta with feta cheese and I thought, hey Eren as a god, another excuse to lovingly write prose about his tanned limbs but I don’t know what happened.


	27. Life Drawing Model

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based off the prompt by eren-thegermantitan on tumblr:
> 
> "I want an AU where Hanji teaches a figure drawing class where Eren is the (naked) life model and she asks Levi to come drop some stuff off but when he walks into the classroom and sees Eren posing there in all his naked glory he just kind of stands there and stares."

Levi strode into class, 5 minutes early as usual, and began to set up his materials at his usual easel, fixing his newsprint onto the board and sharpening his charcoal sticks. There rest of the students were milling in by now, hurriedly moving to grab boards that weren’t vandalised or had rusty clips attached to them. Hanji bounded in with an enthusiastic, ‘Yahoo!!’ with a stranger in tow. Levi paid the stranger no mind, assuming that that must have been today’s model. 

"Alright class, this is Eren, he’s going to be our model today since our usual model isn’t available this week. We’re going to start off with warm-up gestures, then switch to longer poses. We’ll do a few 20 minute scenes with lighting, too. Everyone got your stuff? Alright great, let’s start." instructed Hanji, and with a murmur of assent the class went to their positions.

Levi took the time to adjust his easel’s position before scrutinising their model for today. He had a boyish look about him, and Levi guessed his age must have been around the early twenties. Long, tanned limbs and a rather attractive face, all things considered. 

Then Eren took his clothes off, stripping efficiently and folding his jeans and t-shirt neatly. He must have modelled before, because there was no trace of embarrassment as he stepped onto the platform and stretched a bit before settling into the first pose. 

Levi almost forgot to start drawing, because Eren’s body was offensively gorgeous - broad, strong shoulders leading down to a neatly tapered waist - the tan extended to every part of his body, burnishing it gold. Long legs bent sideways showed Levi a rather perfect view of a pert, round butt, and Levi had to mentally shake himself and start sketching before Hanji noticed him ogling their new model. 

He fell into the comfortable rhythm after a while, managing to pull together the focus to draw gesture after gesture, with only the sound of rustling paper and Hanji’s voice calling, “change,” every three minutes. 

The boy’s poses were easy to draw, too - his shoulders and hips were almost never parallel, and Eren always made sure to twist his body just enough that the drawing would be interesting from any vantage point. Levi lost himself for a bit in lines and value, turning his blatant interest in Eren’s form into charcoaled gestures. 

They switched to longer poses soon enough, and Hanji dimmed the lights and handed Eren a cloth and a pole to use as he saw fit. The first twenty minutes gave Levi the perfect opportunity to basically worship the form before him - Eren was faced away from him, cloth draped over one shoulder and legs bent just so. His left arm was extended and the cloth fell from his fingers, while the right was splayed over his chest. He looked like a classical rendition of a greek god, and Levi swallowed past the dryness in his throat and got to work. 

Eren leaning on a pole, back curved. Eren crouched low with his head tilted towards the sky, neck bared in all its glorious beauty. Eren splayed on the platform, arms stretched over his head and body twisted just so - the live drawing session could have gone on forever and Levi wouldn’t have noticed or minded - the boy was the perfect model, he didn’t tremble at the longer poses, he kept still, and his sense of posing was nigh perfect. There was a sensuality in the way he moved, and Levi couldn’t help but take his white pencil to etch in some highlights, making his charcoaled-Eren glow ever so slightly.

When Hanji finally called for a ten minute break, most of the class went to go grab a quick bite or drink from the vending machines outside. Levi stayed indoors, putting the timings in neat handwriting at the bottom of each of his drawings. Hanji wandered to his side to look at the gestures. 

"Hey Levi, how’s it going?" they asked.

Levi didn’t reply, instead letting them sift through his drawings. “Ooh, this one’s very pretty. He looks gorgeous, there. What do you think of Eren?”

Levi paused. 

"He’s not bad - the poses are good to draw." He said simply. Hanji laughed, seemingly reading a lot more into his words than he’d intended. The model in question was wandering around the classroom, cloth draped over his naked frame as he looked at other student’s works interestedly. When Eren came around to his easel, he looked almost shy when he asked, "Could I look?"

Levi nodded - it wasn’t unusual and despite appearances he didn’t really mind people looking at his work. As Eren leaned in, Levi took the time to study his features - from far he’d pegged Eren as having a generally attractive face, but close up - or maybe because he’d spent the better part of the last two hours admiring Eren’s body - he had to amend his earlier statement, even his face was gorgeous, Eren’s bright not-green not-blue eyes being the centrepiece of that ridiculous face. It was almost irritating, but Levi had always been weak to things of beauty, and Eren was definitely beautiful. 

"They’re gorgeous." Eren’s voice broke him out of his reverie, and for a moment he was mentally agreeing that Eren himself was gorgeous - but no, Eren was talking about his drawings of him.

Levi tried not to smile. “Thanks. You’re a good model. Do you do this often?” 

Eren blushed at that, a little.  _'How cute,_ ' Levi thought, when he noticed the tips of those ears turning pink. 

"Ah, yeah, it pays pretty well compared to part-timing, so I do it on the side every so often." A pause, some fidgeting. "I’m Eren, by the way."

Levi hummed, and said, “I know.”

Another pause. Levi sighed internally.

"I’m Levi."

Eren beamed at that, his smile almost too bright. They chatted a bit, Eren asking Levi about his course of study, and vice versa. 10 minutes passed by easily, and Levi blinked as Eren said a cursory ‘Bye, Levi.” as he went back to the platform - break was over. 

The rest of the session passed by fairly uneventfully. Eren had taken to facing his side of the class more often, though, bright eyes shining with good humour as he meet Levi’s eyes. Talking with Eren had sort of calmed him - for whatever reason Levi didn’t know - and by the end of the last hour he had a bunch of drawings he was rather pleased with. The feedback session went well, with Hanji going round the class critiquing and praising the student’s work. Erd and Petra had done particularly nice drawings of Eren, but Aruro had had some difficulties with some of the more dynamic poses. A few of the students had come up to Levi and complimented his work, to which he had nodded his thanks. He looked up to see Eren across the studio shrugging on his clothes, and took a moment to feel some measure of regret as he watched that tanned skin disappear behind unassuming cloth. Eren was only here for a week or two until their usual model returned, and Levi thought it would be a waste to not be able to draw Eren’s form again. He shook his head at his own ridiculous thoughts, and grabbed his drawings and fixative to go outside and set them so they wouldn’t smudge. 

When he came back, Eren had already left. When he packed up his things, though, he noticed a piece of paper stuck to his box of charcoal. A note, with a phone number and messy handwriting.

"If you ever want to draw me outside of class, if you know what I mean ;) - Eren.” 

Levi snorted at the audacity of the kid, amused despite himself. After a moment’s pause, he slipped the paper into his pocket, and left the drawing studio.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh yeah more figure drawing stuff oops. I am obsessed with art school and Eren in all possible variations.


	28. Insert Coin to Restart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bunch of glimpses into Eren's life.

Eren sleeps alone, curled up and unable to sleep because the quiet sounds of his house sound nothing like the barracks, and without being in the presence of people familiar and safe, he cannot feel at ease enough to sleep.

—-

He loves his mother but she’s not exactly the same, and when this Carla braids her hair and does the housework, he chokes a little, throat closing up as he visualises beams, collapsing. He tells his mother she looks nicer with her hair down.

—-

The first time his mother buys peppermint tea (she says it helps headaches) the smell of it reminds him of corporal Levi so much that he has to hold back tears. Then again, he was a child, then.

—-

When he’s 9, he asks to buy a red scarf even though it’s not winter, and keeps it safe in his drawers. ‘For when I find Mikasa’, he thinks.

—-

He joins martial arts classes as a teenager, and the instructors are surprised that he hasn’t had lessons before. “You have good balance,” they say. Eren tries to look grateful but he can only think of 3DMG training, and of Mikasa and Jean and Sasha and everybody. He stays until he’s one of the last to leave, so he can practice moves that Annie taught him without people seeing.

—-

He’s always grateful for food, but unexpectedly he has soup and bread a lot. Sometimes he thinks that his mind is bordering on masochistic, but he tears his bread and eats it anyways, thinking that it’s softer than he’s used to.


	29. Nothing's the Same

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren tries to find peace in a world without war. Reincarnation AU.

Eren sleeps alone, curled up towards himself, but even if he holds a pillow close and pretends its somebody else, he can’t sleep - the quiet sounds of the house sound nothing like the barracks, and in the morning he hears his mother’s humming and the sound of the coffee machine starting up and he can’t help but feel disbelief for a moment or two before his mind registers which life he’s living, and that his mother is alive in this one. 

His mother tuts at him when she sees his face and the dark circles around his eyes, and it’s all Eren can do to smile weakly at her as he eats his breakfast and heads out to school. 

—-

When he sees Mikasa at the bus stop, his shoulders drop a notch, and he takes her hand, not caring that it looks like they’re dating. She looks concerned, as usual, her mouth a tight line when she looks at the pallor of his face.

"Couldn’t sleep. I kept complaining about Reiner’s snoring and the rest of the guys, but now that it’s silent I can’t sleep," he says, bitterly. Mikasa nods silently, and offers her shoulder for him to lean on when they’re on the bus. Even now, she’s taller than he is. She knows it’s not really about the sounds - that after all these years and the horror they’ve somehow remembered, Eren can’t sleep properly unless he’s curled up with somebody familiar and  _safe._  (She and Armin make it a point to have Eren come over to sleep during bad weeks, and they curl up together like wolves in a pack - and only then does the furrow in Eren’s brow lighten.) 

Until know, they’ve barely found anyone from the 104th, and none of their commanding officers. Mikasa wonders about the Corporal, wonders if Eren still thinks of Levi when he lies awake at night. 

—-

He moves out of town to go to University after high school, and Mikasa and Armin follow. The insomnia seems to have settled a little, or at least Eren has gotten used to the sensation of not sleeping enough. At least, as a college student, the amount of coffee he consumes doesn’t seem out of place. He joins MMA classes and fighting calms him, somewhat - the ache of his muscles and the smell of sweat makes him think of the guys after training. At his trial, the instructor seemed surprised that he’d never had lessons - “You have good balance.” he’d said. Eren snorted, though he tried to look suitably embarrassed and pleased while internally thinking of 3DMG training, and its requirement that users know their bodies and centres of gravity with pinpoint accuracy. 

When he hears one of the girls in his session proclaim how hungry she is, he misses Sasha, and the ache in his chest never seems to stop. That day he stays past his usual time in the gym, practicing old hand-to-hand manoeuvres that Annie taught him now that there’s nobody around to watch.

"Swing out from your hips, kid. You’re wasting energy. Or did nobody teach you better?" 

Eren jerks around angrily on reflex, bristling both at the unexpected presence and the jibe, because he’d been tense all day and the comment about being taught just makes him think of Corporal Levi, and that’s just not. Acceptable. 

"Fuck off, my teacher was -"

The words die in his mouth when he registers who is in front of him, short and muscled and pale -  _absolutely beautiful_  - an eyebrow arched and face impassive, though his eyes - how Eren had missed that shade of gun-metal grey - were bright as they looked at Eren.

"Sir," he breathes, not daring to believe his eyes. 

 

 


	30. Vignette

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An AU where tattoos naturally develop on people’s bodies.

 

Eren grows up normal and unmarked, for the most part. When he’s 9, a knife, blood dripping down its inked blade, appears in his palm. He’s disconcerted until he sees that Mikasa has the same one on her left hand. They hold hands in the playground, each of their murder-marks mirroring the other’s.

—-

When Eren is 15, one of his arms develop a ring of thorns, circling just above the forearm. That night, he dreams of his arm being bitten off, and gets no sleep.

——

Armin was born with a sigil for knowledge above his heart, small and delicate, something the doctors almost missed when he came into the world. His parents thought it was sweet, and gave him all the books he asked for when he was a child.

When he was 10, he understood that knowledge wasn’t always a happy thing. Even so, he kept his mothers’ books close to his chest, pressed against funeral blacks.

—-

Krista, their friend, has a crown on her forehead. It’s beautiful and delicate, something a queen would wear, but the girl herself is shy and withdrawn, and the tattoo only makes her keep her hair down, blonde hair obscuring a mark seemingly too royal for a shy high schooler.

—-

Levi grows up with a skull in one palm and a rose in the other. He doesn’t care too much for them, but they don’t stand out in the streets, where skulls and other death-marks adorn most of the people here.

His teenage years are met with wings, ink black, over his shoulders, spreading down over his deltoids and upper arms. He… likes them, even in their irony.

—-

When they meet, it’s in the autumn, and the cold air is biting Eren’s skin as he takes in the sight of the stranger, beautiful and pale and somehow familiar. He starts to apologise, for bumping into him, but the stranger isn’t looking up at him, instead staring transfixedly at his neck.

Eren belatedly realises that his scarf has come undone, and the back of his neck burns in the way that signals the appearance of a new tattoo. He looks back up at the stranger, who is looking a mixture of horrified and awestruck. Eren should feel offended - tattoos are ultimately a private thing, and their conception is usually something kept hidden - but no matter, he can’t bring himself to mind.

"What is it?" He asks the stranger, curious.

The shorter man’s voice is tight when he answers, “A wound. On the back of your neck.”

Eren blinks, surprised. He feels strange, and wonders why a wound tattoo would appear on his neck, why something so ominous?

He laughs, a little nervously. His companions face looks pained. He begins, awkwardly, to introduce himself, before-

"Eren," the stranger says, face almost impassive, save for too-bright, grey eyes.

Something about the way his name catches on thin lips rings a bell, and Eren remembers.

—-

In fits and bursts, but he remembers. The headache is massive, and when he wakes up again he’s lying down on a bench, the stranger-yet-not-a-stranger leaning over him, brows furrowed, a cup of water in hand.

When he gives his name -  _Levi, how perfectly it sits on Eren’s tongue_ \- it spills from Eren’s lips like water, soothing all the cracked and parched portions of him, even as his hands reach out to grab, knives and thorns pressing against the outline of wings and roses.

—-

2 months into their friendship, a swallow appears on Levi’s left clavicle. Levi seems rather nonplussed, but Eren remembers his old book of sailor tattoos and smiles, even as the back of mind traitorously wonders about Levi’s lovers.

He doesn’t realise it until two weeks later, when somebody points it out in the changing rooms, a flash of colour on his right shoulder blade. A swallow, brother to the one on Levi’s pale skin. He swallows tightly, and pulls on a hoodie, not knowing what to think about it.

—-

When the tension eventually breaks he clings to Levi like he’s drowning, and Levi’s hands discover a lifetime’s worth of stories in the ink on his skin. He pauses over the swallow on Eren’s back, and chuckles a bit before bending down to press a kiss against the skin.

When he reaches the wound on Eren’s neck, he pauses, and amidst the haze Eren thinks he can hear an apology slip past Levi’s lips to sink into the skin at the back of his neck.

Eren shudders, and turns around to face his lover.

—-

A year later, a band appears on both their ring fingers. Eren laughs and makes a joke, but Levi answers honestly, seriously, and Eren laughs again, tears in his eyes.


	31. Kingsfoil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lord of The Rings AU

You see him crumpled on the floor when the dust clears. He coughs, wetly, and you feel fear strike your chest- you know that sound, that sound accompanied your childhood when you followed your father around on his physician house visits. That sound accompanies death. 

 

There, blue-tinged lips, and blood, his beautiful warm blood everywhere. You heave the cooling body of the horse that’s crushing his already-broken ribs off of him, the burn in your body secondary after you saw his body amongst others on the battlefield. 

 

He coughs, and cloudy eyes don’t seem to register your face at first. He smiles. That’s strange, that’s wrong, he shouldn’t be smiling when all his teeth are red. 

 

You haul his body over the cracked ground, despite your commanding officer telling you to leave the dead.  _He’s not dead yet_ , you insist through clenched teeth. Some of your fellow soldiers run and help, they know that look on your face, and they know that until Levi’s body is dead and gone and cold in your arms, nothing will stop you from bodily carrying him back to camp. Back to the king - you’d never believed it before, that the heir to the throne could heal all ails; that kingly hands could patch what death had touched. _If the king won’t heal humanity’s strongest, then he will be without two of his soldiers this day_ , you think, desperate, hot anger trapped in your lungs. 

 

"Don’t give up on me, captain. Don’t you dare." You find yourself saying, angry and insubordinate, some part of you hoping he will wake up enough to scold you for your rudeness. 

 

He doesn’t. 

 

—-

 

The king, as it turns out,  _does_  have time to heal humanity’s strongest soldier, even busy as he is tending to the other wounded, and rallying the country under his new rule. 

 

You think that the whole country is barren of kingsfoil, now. 

 

The smell of it has seeped into the wood and stone, and the castle linens are stained with blood and grit and grime. You can still smell the ash, cracked against your skin. You feel terribly out of place, in your soiled and battered armour as you hover outside of the ward, waiting for word on your captain’s health. 

 

When they let you through the doors, you rush through, ignoring the warning that he probably won’t know your face, fevered as he is. 

 

The king is still leaning over him, hands stained red even when the evening sun sets his blond hair alight like a halo. 

 

He nods at you, weary and dignified as he always is. You already know that he is half elf-kind, but even so nothing seems to prepare you for the otherworldly beauty of his face. You bow, body already itching to break out of respectable stance and run, run to Levi’s side like you should be. 

 

The king leaves you to your privacy with a parting murmur, “He will live if his fever breaks and the delirium passes. Good luck.”

 

You do run, after he leaves the room, bending over your captains’ clammy brow and stroking his filthy hair back. He stirs, ragged breaths grating on your ears. He shouts commands and whimpers in his sleep, trashing about as some unknown darkness grips at him. He does not recognise you.

 

Through it all, you stay, unmoving. 

 

The medics force stale bread on you, and spare clothes. Your sister, now captain of the royal guard, comes to see you, push more food at you, and look at your captain. Anyone else would assume disdain, but you know that she respects him. All of you did, those who fought under him. 

 

She turns away, and you think the only disdain she has for him is because he is making you upset. You hug your sister, and promise to report to court alongside your captain. 

 

—-

 

He wakes up. 

 

—-

 

He wakes up, eyes blinking slowly open as he looks up at you, squinting in the morning light. His palms are dry and weak in your hands, and he looks at you, searching. The fever-brightness of his eyes has faded, and recognition dawns beautiful on his face as he whispers, voice cracked with disuse, “I know your face.”

 

"Eren," he says, lips forming the word easily even as they split and bleed. He repeats your name, softly, like those two syllables were worth treasuring as they passed his lips. 

 

"Captain," you reply, unable to bring yourself to step away long enough to salute. You remain close, close enough to smell linen and kingsfoil and sickness, close enough that no one else but Levi could see the watery shine in your eyes. 

 

"Welcome back," you say, voice proud and wavering with relief. The war is over, and he is here. 


	32. Puppy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For an anonymous prompt on Tumblr: 'AU where Eren is a puppy who Levi took from the streets who mysteriously turned human and calls Levi master.'

There is a German Shepherd Puppy on the street - hackles raised and pathetically trying to be intimidating. 

Levi stares at the scraggly, matted fur, noting the dried blood in disgust before crouching low and offering his hand to the puppy - and he gets bitten for it, its strong jaw biting into skin as hard as he can - but Levi doesn’t move (he thanks god it’s still a puppy, though) and after a while, the pup backs off, wary but no longer hostile. 

Levi brings him home.

* * *

And cleans him. 

The dog is skittish and hostile, but Levi’s gotten good at dealing with cornered animals (shut  _up,_ Erwin, humans are totally animals), and a rather extensive discussion with Hanji later, he gets what he needs and does the required reading, and takes care of Eren responsibly, strong and firm and a  _leader._  

* * *

He’s reading about names and their meanings when he comes across the name. He snorts, and looks at his dog. (He’d been saying  _his_ dog for months, now, and has given up denying that he’d gotten attached to the puppy, who was beginning to fill out into a leggy, lean dog - less clumsy now, with big baleful eyes that look up at Levi from where his chin is perched on Levi’s knee) and says, “People like to idolise saints after they treat them like shit, huh,  _Eren?”_

The puppy looks up at the name, head cocked to the side slightly. 

“ _Eren_ ,” Levi says, more commandingly.

Eren follows.

* * *

He’s giving Eren a bath when it happens. 

Eren’s 2, now, all strong muscle and sleek fur. He still hasn’t outgrown his ridiculous need to play, so Levi indulges Eren in the bath, getting soaked in the process. When he finally manages to get the dog into the bathtub and turn on the shower, something decidedly not normal happens.

Something  _shifts_ , and Levi is suddenly in front of a boy - a very wet, naked, sudsy boy in his bathtub, no dog in sight. 

"What the fuck?" he says, so shocked his voice is incredibly even. 

The kid looks down at his body and freaks out, tripping and falling further into the bathtub. 

"Eren?" Levi says.

The boy stills at the name, and turns to face him immediately. 

"Yes?" 

 _Well shit,_  Levi thinks.

* * *

His dog wasn’t a dog anymore.

* * *

There isn’t much difference - after the initial shock and repulsion of suddenly having a stranger’s body press up against him, Levi does indeed realise that it is his Eren - or rather, Eren just  _looks_  at him, those big eyes (now green, still baleful) giving him that  _exact_  same look like he does at the dinner table - and Levi caves.

He caves because Eren still flinches at loud noises and aggression; still hovers close to him when it’s storming (He used to hide under the bed during thunderstorms - now Levi just pulls him up against him, and strokes his head like he always does.) 


	33. Art School Chronicles: I think I'm in Love With you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another Art School AU. Collaboration is the fuel of love.

They meet at orientation and Levi’s feeling grouchy because he’s quite a bit older than most of the freshman. He'd served in the army for a bit, gone around to different places before finally committing to studying art. 

Classes start, and there’s this kid in a lot of them - bit of a loudmouth, but well liked by his classmates - Levi will even admit that the Jaeger kid’s pretty funny, sometimes. 

They end up eating together for lunch because their schedules line up - and end up talking about stupid things like the deer on campus blocking the roads to school - but sometimes they also talk about their favourite artists and their influences. Eren’s pretty sure he’s going into Fine Art, but Levi isn’t really sure - he dabbles too much in Photography and Animation and Illustration and everything in between. 

"It’s fine, though," Eren says, halfway through chewing through a granola bar. He swallows before continuing, "Whatever you do, it’ll be great - just do everything." he says simply. 

Levi snorts - it would almost be annoying - but Eren is so inherently guileless that Levi just takes the compliment in good grace. He kicks Eren’s chair as he stands - it’s time to head back to class.

* * *

The drawing studios are always freezing - counter-productive, considering that there’s usually a naked model in them, Eren thinks - and he’s forgotten his jacket in his car because he didn’t have enough hands to carry his bag, canvas, and other painting paraphernalia. 

His hands are stiff as he draws, but suddenly there’s this soft warmth pressing into his shoulders, and he leans back into it, head tilting back to look at Levi, who is leaning over him disapprovingly. 

"You’re in a tank top," Levi says, almost accusingly. 

Eren huffs, “It was hot as balls just now, okay - I forgot my jacket - stop staring at my arms like they offended you, man.” 

Levi rolls his eyes, and presses his jacket - that’s what it was, Eren thinks blearily - into Eren’s arms. 

"You can’t draw if your hands are shivering. Return it to me tomorrow or something." Levi says, and returns to his easel. The sight of his tattooed forearms seems somehow new to Eren, now that the peripheral knowledge that the sleeves that were obscuring them are encasing Eren’s instead. 

* * *

Levi doesn’t say it out, but he thinks that Eren’s drawings and colours are dynamic as fuck - he want’s to tell Eren that all the time. He refrains.

* * *

Eren thinks it all the time, but he never says it because he thinks Levi will find it tedious - but Levi makes the most  _interesting_  things - they’re clever and use weird materials and they always have some sort of hidden meaning. He keeps quiet, choosing instead to just look and observe his friend. 

* * *

"Oh my god what do I do?" Eren is bemoaning the heavens at this point. 

"Just pick two of the classes and take the other time slot for your painting class," Levi replies, as calmly as he can, even as he’s rapidly clicking around the Sina Academy of Fine Art’s student website to sign up for his own classes. 

"But but but I want to take Smith’s class - Why can’t I take everything?" 

Levi stops typing - he’s done with his scheduling and it’s a thing of beauty, by the way - and turns to Eren. He takes Eren’s face in his hands to stop his jittering. 

"Calm down. Let’s go to the department head’s office." he says, and all but drags Eren down the hallway. 

* * *

After Eren has sorted his class schedule and calmed down from his state of mild panic, he still feels Levi’s palms on his face.

* * *

By the time deadline week rolls around, Levi’s taken to kipping at Eren’s place just because he lives nearer to school - right now he’s passed out, sitting on the floor with his face pressed into Eren’s bed, sketches scattered around him.

Eren, freshly showered, regards the scene rather fondly, as he goes to wake Levi up and herd him into the shower. Levi cracks and eye blearily open at his shoulder being shaken, expression hostile on default until he sees that it’s Eren.

This close, Eren can see the immediate softening of his features, and doesn’t know why that makes him feel all weird and stomach-floppy. He herds Levi into the bathroom so he can take a shower. 

He tries not to think of Levi in the shower as he works on his assignments.

* * *

In the Summer, Levi has an internship, and is gone for a good three months. Eren is happy for him. 

Not really.

* * *

But school starts again, and they fall into pace next to each other easily, and Eren relaxes, brushing shoulders and admiring Levi in his leather jacket - it’s Fall, again.

* * *

They’re discussing a concept for a collaboration when it sort of starts. Levi takes the sketchbook from Eren, drawing over the underdrawing. His hands brush over Eren’s as he works, and Eren flushes a little, surprised at his own reaction. 

When Eren doesn’t reply to his comment, Levi looks up - and is caught by the deer-in-headlights expression Eren has on. He notices their proximity, and notices his lack of aversion to it. 

Eren flushes, and drops his gaze to the drawing. 

The moment passes, but Levi remembers the curve of Eren’s cheek, and a sliver of his neck visible in the gape of his scarf.

* * *

When the tension breaks, it’s during finals, as though they didn’t have enough on their plate already. They’re collaborating again for one of their projects, and Eren is exhausted and leaning against Levi, forehead pressed into Levi’s shoulder. 

Levi hesitates, then reaches up to run a hand through Eren’s terrible bedhead. 

The boy stills, surprised. He shifts away, looking at Levi inquisitively. Levi draws his hand back, but before he can brush it off, Eren just leans close again, sighing tiredly into Levi’s shirt.

"Okay, after Tuesday, lets talk about this. But - now -"

"Yeah," Levi says, relieved. His hand hovers, unsure.

"Keep petting me," Eren mumbles. 

Levi snorts, and obliges.

* * *

After Tuesday, they’re so tired they just go back home (Home being Eren’s place because Levi’s all but moved in) and pass out on the bed, exhausted.

16 hours later, they wake up, sore-jointed and grimy. They both blink at each other blearily, and grin as the realisation kicks in that they’re done with everything. 

 _Fuck it,_  Levi thinks, and leans in, hands reaching out. 

Eren just lets him, pliant and sleepily pleased when Levi’s hands hold his neck. 

"Oh yeah," he says, distracted, "It’s after Tuesday." 

"Yeah," Levi replies, voice low.

A beat of silence.

"I don’t even know what to say," Eren begins, voice coloured with amusement and embarrassment. He’s still leaning into Levi’s space though, and in the mess of Eren’s room, Levi’s comfortable. 

"Stop me if you don’t like it, okay?" He murmurs, pulling Eren close. 

* * *

The kiss sort of tastes like stale coffee, but neither of them can bring themselves to mind.

 


	34. Pastels in Buff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An AU to my usual Art School AU, where Levi works at the Art Supply Store, and Eren is an Art Student

It’s Eren’s first year at Sina Academy of Fine Art, and he goes to the nearby art store a week before school starts to grab art materials,  _but he can’t find the pastels in that one particular shade_. 

While staring and frowning at the empty display where the pastels are supposed to be, when he hears an attendant call out to him.

"Hey kid, you need anything?" in a sardonic, low voice.

He turns, and  _holy shit_ , there’s a store attendant, short, male,  _gorgeous,_  hair buzzed short in an undercut, sleeve tattoos visible on forearms - and an impatient expression on his face. 

"I-Uh. Yeah, do you have any stock of the NuPastels in uh-" he checks his materials list, and blushes, "Buff?" _  
_

The store attendant - _Levi,_ his nametag read - pauses, and looks amused before replying, “Gimme a minute.” 

Eren nods, and steps aside to let Levi pass. He watches him stretch up to reach some of the stored boxes on a shelf, distracted by the stretch of his body, before realising that Levi was opening Pastel sets just to get Eren that one stick of pastel, and an irrational surge of attachment bloomed in Eren’s chest at the sight. 

Soon, Levi straightened and turned towards him, placing the pastel neatly in Eren’s hand. “One buff for you, kid.” he said. 

Eren brightened, thanking Levi profusely, ears a bit pink at the tone of his voice, and went off to find the rest of his materials. 

* * *

Eren, all in all, is rather pleased that there is a very cute art store guy, because he needs some form of joy in his sad, sorry life. Still, he’s embarrassed at his lack of verbal grace, and is hoping to conclude his materials run without any further encounter, because he needs to mentally regroup. 

Which is to say, Eren is completely and utterly unprepared to see Levi at the only available cash register. 

* * *

In five minutes, Eren’s got a 20% discount and a new store membership.

In five minutes, Levi’s got a name to put to that cute face.

 _It’s going to be a good year here_ , they both think.

 


	35. Songs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi busks on the street on Mondays.
> 
> Eren watches.

Levi busks on the street on Mondays, when he’s not working at the grocery store - and Eren ends up taking his lunch to go and just hangs around the corner of Sina and Rose just to listen to Levi sing before his second class of the day. 

And Levi sings - he’s got a well-worn (but extremely well-kept) guitar slung across his shoulder, and nimble hands pick out chords and notes despite the bite of autumn air. He sings about the dead, about freedom, and something in Eren’s chest always aches at the words. 

He drops notes in Levi’s guitar case when he does have change to spare - and Levi starts to nod at him when Eren appears on the street corner around lunchtime.

* * *

When it gets colder, Eren brings Levi coffee, partly because he works at the cafe near campus and he gets a discount from Hannes. He works up the courage to walk up to Levi in-between sets, and Levi looks surprised at Eren’s boldness, when their entire interaction had been non-verbal.

"I got an extra coffee, do you want some?" Eren asks, unsure. 

Levi stares at him for a bit, and then nods, taking the cup from Eren gratefully. There isn’t much of a crowd today, so Levi readjusts his grip on his guitar and starts to sip at his coffee. 

"Thanks for the coffee," he says, curtly, but Eren can’t seem to mind. In hindsight, he should have probably noticed at this point, that he had grown a little disproportionately fond of his favourite busker.

"I’m Eren, by the way," Eren offers. Levi nods, repeating the name softly like he’s committing it to memory. 

They talk, a little, before Eren has to go to class. They talk about music, and Eren manages to mention that the lyrics of Levi’s new song are incredible. 

Levi thanks him, using his name, and Eren feels inexplicably warm.

* * *

Levi grows used to Eren appearing consistently every week, and looks forward to those days, partly because it’s starting to get cold as fuck and Eren is cute and earnest, and Levi needs to appreciate the small things in life when his fingers are stiff in the cold of autumn. Levi has no idea why the kid keeps coming back, but Eren is genuine when he compliments his songs, and Levi just keeps warming up to him.

* * *

Hannes mentions that he’s thinking of clearing up some space at the back of the Cafe to have musicians come in in hopes of livening up business on certain weeknights, and asks if Eren knows anyone.

* * *

He approaches Levi the next day.

"Eren," Levi says, neutrally. Eren grins in reply, and blurts his proposal in a hurry. 

"You don’t have to if you don’t want to - but it’s warmer than it is on the street, and you’ll probably get some free coffee. Think about it, yeah?" 

Levi agrees to have an answer for Eren soon.

* * *

He appears at  _Shiganshina Coffee_  on Wednesday, and Eren stumbles on his ‘Welcome to Shiganshina Coffee!’ halfway at the sight of the musician in a leather jacket. 

"Levi! Hi! Uh, what can I get you?" he asks, suddenly terribly self-conscious. Levi seems amused, and places his order quietly. 

Eren’s concentration is off for the rest of his shift. Levi is sitting at a corner of the cafe, writing in a notebook and people-watching. After Eren’s shift ends, he takes off his apron and approaches Levi’s table.

"What do you think?" he asks.

"It’s a nice place. What days are available?" Levi asks. 

Eren grins.

* * *

The cafe is quieter than the street, and somebody scrounges up a microphone from somewhere (Hannes has been thinking of this for a long time, it seems), so Eren has the pleasure of hearing Levi sing softer, quieter songs.

* * *

_Felled in the night_

_by the ones you think you love,_

_Felled in the night_

_by the ones you think you love_

* * *

Eren changes his shifts to match up with the days Levi is performing, just because he’ll get to see Levi a few times a week rather than just on Mondays. They start becoming friends, and Eren is glad for Levi’s no-bullshit attitude and firm convictions. Levi’s just drawn to Eren in his entirety - his mannerisms and his stubborn righteousness, his hard-headed naiveté, and the attentive expression Eren always has on his face when he listens to Levi’s songs. 

 

* * *

Levi ends up staying even after the Cafe starts to close, keeping Eren company when he takes the closing shift. Eren is humming one of Levi’s songs under his breath as he cleans without knowing, and is surprised when Levi softly sings the lines in time with him.

He blushes as he looks at Levi, embarrassed, but the older man is just staring steadily at him, voice low in the quiet of the empty cafe. The air seems thick, and it’s as though Levi is waiting for Eren to do something.

He knows his voice is decent, though nothing like Levi’s, Eren can carry a tune. So softly, tentatively, he starts on the next line.

_"But you’ve gone somewhere deeper._

_Are you going to age with grace?”_

Levi looks pleased, lips quirking up when he hears Eren’s voice, voice coming stronger, urging Eren to go louder.

They finish the chorus, and its incredibly quiet, both men still amidst stacked chairs. Eren’s phone chimes and breaks the moment, and he hurries off to finish cleaning, Levi watching him all the while.

* * *

That night, Eren is unable to sleep. He thinks of Levi, instead. There are lyrics in his head and in the quiet of his room, he wishes he could hear the soft strumming of a guitar. 

* * *

Eren is skittish around Levi after that, and while they’ve never so much as brushed hands, the memory of that night makes Eren’s fingers slip on soy milk cartons and mess up customer orders. 

Levi simply takes to watching Eren as he works, silently amused by the newfound carelessness. He writes new songs, and more and more of them have a quiet optimism, his voice rounding out over words as he looks at Eren. 

* * *

It takes a couple of weeks, but Eren edges nearer to Levi, curious about the new songs. 

"They’re beautiful." he says, as the last chord hangs in the air between them. 

Levi’s lips quirk a little at that, but he doesn’t reply. Eren fidgets, and decides to just ask.

"Hey, do you want to go get coffee sometime?" he says, and immediately cringes at how awkward it sounds.

Levi snorts. “We’re in a cafe, Eren.”

"I know! I mean,  _argh_. Just answer me, please.” Eren asks, aggrieved and mortified.

"You avoid me for two weeks and this is what I get?" Levi replies, sighing in mock-resignation. He sets his guitar carefully in its case as Eren sputters.

He turns to the boy, the infuriating, clueless boy, and steps right up in his personal space, mildly irritated that this kid is taller than him by a good amount. 

"Sure, lets do coffee," he breathes softly, looking up at Eren steadily. He’d be more nervous, but Eren is already high-strung enough for the both of them, and Levi hasn’t been so sure of something for a very long time. Eren’s shoulders drop with relief, and he smiles shyly, bright and happy and guileless. 

"Um," he starts, eyes darting to Levi’s lips then skittering away as though afraid of being caught. 

"God," Levi mutters in mild irritation as he hooks a finger around one strap of Eren’s cafe apron, pulling him close. 

He kisses him, softly. Eren makes this strange noise at the back of his throat before returning the kiss. When they part, the boy looks dazed, almost like he can’t believe what just happened.

* * *

_It felt like we were waiting for years_

_In the quiet of nights that don’t end_

_Your limp wings can’t hold you up_

_But I am here_

_I am here_

_I am here._

 


	36. Garden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On angels, fallen, and Grace. Demon Levi, Mortal Eren. The beginning of things.

Levi finds him in a garden, weeping. His first thought is that it must be one of his new brothers, one of the newly fallen, all terrible beauty and a gaping hole filled only with the memory of divinity.

But there are no bones or rotting flesh protruding out of that warm back, only freckles from days spent in the sun.

The boy’s eyes are as green as the gardens of old, and his skin like the clay they made figures of angels from - He is formed with love and grace in every line of his limbs - but somehow mortal. 

 _'Why do you weep?'_  Levi asks, trying to keep his voice from sounding too serpentine.

The boy does not flinch, only lifts his head far enough to look Levi in the eye. Even with tears brimming in them, the boy looks  _strong -_

 _'I don't remember',_  he says softly, and it is as though Levi can see the hole gaping within the cavity of that fragile chest - ‘ _I don’t remember’,_ he repeats.

 _'Well',_  Levi says, intrigued by this terrible creature that looks so much like his kin, ‘ _do you have a name?’_  he asks. _  
_

Something stirs in the boy, then. A furrow appears on that brow, and Levi is almost irritated at something marring the smoothness of that forehead, before an answer comes, “ _Eren. I am Eren.”_

Ah. Just another mortal, then, surely, with a name like that. Levi steps backwards, curiosity sated, yet somehow dissatisfied. 

 _'Wait! Where are you going?'_  the boy - Eren - calls out.

 _'Away. To the city. Anywhere,'_ he answers, not looking back.

Then, there is a grip on the ends of his wings - so  _warm_  - human hands trying to catch him like smoke. 

 _'Take me with you',_  the boy says, determined.  _  
_

Levi considers this. There is no reason for him to agree.

There is no reason not to. He considers his boredom, and the beauty of the boy, and finds himself agreeing. 

 _Come, then, Eren,_  he says, shrugging his wings to dislodge the boy’s distracting hand. 

The boy follows.


	37. Desert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fantasy Desert AU where Eren is a court dancer and Levi is the part of a group of visiting ‘dignitaries’ to the court.

They call him jewel-eyes, in their language, and kings have cherished that skin and veiled him, all at once wanting to hide him and to see all of him.

 

Eren dances for them, is sent to the guest quarters to entertain them, and accidentally overhears Erwin and Levi planning the assassination of his master. He tries to feign ignorance, but apparently his reaction gives him away, and all at once he is pressed against a wall, a cool blade pressed against his throat. 

 

"Boy. You understand us, don’t you?" Levi - the one with the cold, grey eyes - snarls. 

 

Eren breathes shallowly. 

 

"I have a name. It’s Eren, dignitaries. You’re here to kill my master," he says as evenly as he can, even as his heartbeat thumps wildly under the press of Levi’s forearm. 

 

"Shit," Levi mutters, looking at him, and Eren suppresses a shiver as he realises they’re deciding what to do with him. 

 

"Let me help you," he says. 

 

Levi regards him distrustfully. 

 

"I’d help anyone who wants to kill that bloated monster," he says, more vehemently than he means to. 

 

* * *

  


Levi is assigned to watch over him, and relay instructions, since he vouched for the boy (after seeing the look in Eren’s eyes, how illogical, he thinks, but the boy looks like he did, and-) 

* * *

  


They don’t trust him, at first, but Eren completes their tasks easily, quietly; casually, his position and reputation in court helping mask his footsteps. 

* * *

  


The king makes a remark to Levi, chortling that he must be such a gentleman to Eren- he never sees any bruises on the boy’s face. He makes a number of other lewd comments, and Eren’s face is a complete and utter mask of feigned ignorance - pretending he can’t understand the language, Levi realises. He smiles tightly through the rest of the conversation, knuckles white as he grips his goblet of drink. 

 

* * *

  


He sees Eren in the baths, once - the place is huge, and empty so late in the night. It’s not like seeing Eren’s bare skin is a surprise, but even so, the lack of veils reveal a young-looking boy, bruises on his neck and hands where cloth and bracelets usually cover. 

 

Eren smiles brightly at him, ignoring the direction of his gaze. He flirts in a practiced manner, and Levi feels so, so tired. 

 

* * *

  


Eren falls asleep in Levi’s quarters, one night. He shivers in the cool air of the desert night, so Levi nudges him to get into bed. Eren does so, sleepily removing his bracelets and cuffs. 

 

When he wakes up disoriented and panicky, Levi is still poring over plans, and Eren calms down immediately at the sight. 

 

They say nothing of that night. 

 

(Eren left an earring on Levi’s bedside, that night. When he went back for it, he couldn’t find it, and despite everything, he hopes that Levi kept it.) 

 

(Levi kept it.)

 

* * *

  


Eren does try to seduce Levi, in the beginning. Levi evades him, stops him, and soon Eren learns that he doesn’t need to be coy, that Levi doesn’t particularly want him in that manner. 

 

(The thought stings, a little.) 

 

* * *

  


The thing is, Levi does want him. He wants him, months into their operation, and Eren is nothing but a distraction during the day when he dances in court, light footed and glinting with the shine of half a dozen earrings. 

 

He cannot bring himself to touch the boy, not when he knows that Eren only sees his body as currency to be traded. 

Not when he thinks that Eren is under orders. 

 

* * *

  


His gaze follows Eren, and Eren notices. 

It’s ridiculous, when they’re this close to completing their objective, but the both of them are distracted. 

 

* * *

  


Erwin notices, and makes an offhand comment about it (it seems Eren has earned some trust within the ranks of Erwin’s company, now) and Levi assures Erwin that he will not compromise their mission. 

 

He will not. 

 

* * *

  


The night before agreements are to be signed - the night before the coup, Eren appears in Levi’s quarters. He worries at his lips, looking at Levi. 

 

"What is it?" Levi asks. 

 

"Can I stay here tonight?" Eren asks, braced for rejection. 

 

"Eren," Levi begins, tired, "I told you, you don’t need to sleep wit-"

 

"Everything changes, tomorrow."  He looks up at Levi, willing him to understand.

 

A pause. Levi relents.

* * *

  


The bed is large enough for the two of them, but even so, Eren presses close. His hands are trembling slightly, as he grips onto the edge of Levi’s shirt. He realises that Eren is worried.  _Worried for him._  The knowledge spurs him to turn around to face Eren, who makes an undignified sound of surprise. He scoots closer, and soon enough the boy is resting against him, head tucked under Levi’s chin. He spends the night to the sound of Eren breathing.

 

* * *

Before dawn, Levi returns and earring (peridot green and gold wrapped around a gem) to Eren, who looks all at once surprised and pleased.    


 

He laughs when Levi attaches it to his ear again, “I’ll give it to you as a congratulatory present, tonight.” 

 

The joke is weak, but Levi nods anyways, and leaves the room. 

 

* * *

  


They win.

 

* * *

  


They win, and there is chaos in the courts - a mass dispatch of the largest gathering of ministers in the Easternlands. Eren has been evacuating the staff and help, the other girls and boys that were kept within the palace. 

 

Levi finds, him, after. He is injured, bruised and beaten and there is something wrong with the way he’s holding his arm. He smiles at Eren, teeth bloody, before passing out. 

 

* * *

  


When Levi wakes, he’s in a plain room, and Erwin is standing over him. 

 

"Did it work?" he asks, voice hoarse. Erwin smiles and nods. "Things are changing as we speak." He pushes Levi back down from trying to sit up. "Rest, Levi. You need it. More importantly, there’s someone who has been waiting to see you." 

 

He looks past Erwin as the door opens, and there’s a blur of brown skin before he finds himself with a (gently thrown) armful of Eren, for once without the sound of bells on his footsteps. The boy is dressed simply in white, though there is one earring dangling from his ear (peridot green and gold) , the only relic of his old life on him. 

 

"You made it," Eren says happily, "You really did it. I don’t believe it." 

 

"You helped, remember," he replies, voice fond. The boy looks so happy, it’s almost contagious. Eren leans over Levi, eyes scrunched shut with what seems to be profound relief. He pulls Eren close, reckless with relief and victory. When he kisses the boy, he tastes like victory, and it feels like the promise of more things to come. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is art for this! Well, okay, I did a doodle: http://porcelain-blue.tumblr.com/image/103627667675


	38. Marriage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They get married

After the wedding- after the champagne was finished and goodbyes repeated, Eren and Levi managed to return to their room.

Levi sighed, undoing his tie and removing his suit jacket. He turned to Eren, mildly surprised that there was no sound from his now-official husband. 

"Eren?" he said, softly, looking at his groom, who was leaning with his forehead pressed against the door. For a moment, he wondered if Eren regretted the decision, but no, he had as much conviction in Eren as he himself did in their partnership. It was something else.

He approached Eren, softly, gently placing one hand on Eren’s forearm, turning the younger man towards him. “You okay?” he asked, quietly.

“‘m okay, ‘m fine. I just,” Eren began, looking up at Levi, “I’m just sort of overwhelmed. It really happened - we’re really married.” 

Levi manages a small chuckle, at that. “Yeah, we are.” 

Eren smiles at that, happy and content, and Levi finds himself stupidly in love with his husband. 

He pulled Eren close by the collar of his shirt, kissing him softly. Eren responded, smiling against his lips and draping his hands over Levi’s shoulders. The solid feel of his body against Levi’s was still a source of surprise and warmth to Levi. He pulled Eren’s collar down, pressing a kiss into the warmth of his neck. 

"Hey husband," Eren said, breathless and grinning,"Take me to bed." 

Levi obliged.

 


	39. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the war, Levi settles into a quiet life, alone. 
> 
> Eren visits.

  
After the first expedition after the Titan War, he said he’d seen enough of the world - the expansion of civilisation let Levi pick a spot originally outside the walls. He grows a small selection of tea in a quiet town, living a quiet life, alone with his tea and the ache of his injuries. 

Meanwhile, Eren spearheads exploration expeditions. He always returns to Levi’s side, though - and his captain always complains, but when he sets a cup of tea down in front of Eren, his eyes are soft - the brew is always different, and there is always two scoops sugar in Eren’s cup. Eren knows that Levi doesn’t take sugar in his tea, even after plantations expanded and sugar was no longer a rarity. Eren blames the tea for the warmth in his chest, and smiles

* * *

"It was amazing, I didn’t think it’d get so cold - Here, I brought back some stuff, and Armin did some sketches. Hange also wanted me to pass this to you, Captain!" the boy chatters, happy and relaxed. The years have been kind to him, his slightly awkward body filling out as the Titan-shifter grew. He’d gotten taller, too, Levi noted as he eyed Eren. 

"I’m not your captain anymore, Eren." he says, weary. 

Eren flushes, mumbling something that sounded like ‘I’ve never called your name before..” Levi snorts, and tells Eren to not be an idiot.

The sound Eren’s lips around two syllables  _Le-vi_ , shy and soft, is remarkably sweet.

* * *

He keeps everything Eren brings back from his expeditions, and tells himself that it’s because it’d be a waste to toss it out.

* * *

When winter comes, Eren visits, asking to stay with him for a while - (It’s too cold for the Northbound Expedition to continue their operations with the equipment they currently have).

Levi deliberates, and relents. 

* * *

Eren’s hair is long now, much like his Titan-form, and wet strands lie across his nape when he gets out of the bath. Levi tries not to notice the careless curve of Eren’s shoulders, averting his eyes.

* * *

The thing is, Eren is in love with Levi. He has been for so long, it simply has become a fact of his life that he’s completely accepted. Now that he’s older, he’s more relaxed around the man, and long years of fighting alongside each other has given Eren enough time to not stutter and blush like his 15-year-old self might have done. 

His 15 year old self has never seen Levi in soft, civilian’s clothes, though - hair damp from a bath and feet bare - he looks calm, and the rumples of his shirt are just  _inviting_  Eren to touch- 

He turns away. 

* * *

A week into Eren’s stay, he hears it. Jolted out of his bed by the sound of things crashing to the floor, Eren resists the urge to grab his gear (It’s not even there anymore, there are no Titans here, except for him) and goes instead to Levi’s room, hesitating outside the door. 

'Levi?' he calls.

There is only the sound of something being thrown at the door and shattering. Eren makes up his mind, and enters. 

Levi is crouched in a corner of the room, leg still tangled in one of his sheets. The sight makes Eren’s chest ache, and he approaches Levi warily. There is a glint of metal in his Captain’s hand - Levi is holding a knife, fingers clenched and trembling around the hilt. 

'Captain,' he tries. Levi flinches, curling in upon himself. He's close now, right in front of Levi, not yet touching. Levi's skin, already pale, is drawn tight over his bones, shadows deep cuts under his eyes. Eren places an open palm on Levi's shoulder, bracing himself for impact. 

In a whirl of grappling, Eren has been pushed down (despite his skill at hand-to-hand, he’s never beaten Levi more than a handful of times. To be fair, he isn’t trying very hard at this point, he doesn’t want to hurt Levi, not like this), Levi is leaning over him, snarling, a blade pressed hard against his throat. 

Eren closes his hands over Levi’s, despite the movement causing the skin of his neck to break against the knife’s edge. “Levi, it’s me. It’s Eren,” he tries again, pitching his voice low, soothing. His thumb rubs absentminded circles on Levi’s wrist as he waits.

Slowly, Levi seems to come back to himself. He pulls away, looking horrified, looking down at Eren sprawled on the floor before him.

"Eren," he says, hoarsely. 

Levi looks more shaken than Eren has ever seen him - and Eren can’t really formulate a reply before Levi is leaning down again, a deep furrow between his eyebrows.

"Fuck, I cut you. You okay?" he says, shaky.

Eren nods as he replies, moving to grip Levi’s forearm - whether to anchor himself or Levi, he doesn’t know - “It’ll heal soon, I’m okay.” 

"Fuck, brat, don’t -" 

"Don’t tell me to ignore you if I hear that the next time, Captain. You know there’s no way in hell I can do that. You know I won’t, Levi." 

Levi grits his teeth in irritation, moving to stand. He pulls Eren up, and produces a damp cloth from somewhere to wipe at Eren’s mostly healed neck, tossing the knife aside in distaste. Eren watches as Levi sits heavily on his bed, palms dragging over his eyes in frustration and exhaustion.

"Does this happen often?" Eren asks softly. 

Levi exhales, saying nothing. Eren takes that as a  _yes._ He approaches Levi again, and Levi’s hands are still trembling. Without thinking, he takes one of Levi’s hands in his own, rubbing his palms over them to warm them - Levi stiffens, but allows the contact. 

"Eren," Levi begins, but Eren cuts him off. 

"I love you. You’ve got to know that. I don’t care, captain. Unless you say you never want to see my face again, I’m going to stay." He looks up at Levi, and his face is honest - as it always is - green eyes bright in the dim of Levi’s room, bright and serious and earnest, and Levi’s chest is aching - "Let me help." 

 _I am old and broken and far too little for someone like you, Eren_ , he thinks but does not say, but somehow it looks like Eren understands anyways, looking like Levi in a way that makes him want to hide, to never look Eren in the eyes again, but Eren is moving again, drawing closer, and the boy is so  _warm -_

The press of dry lips to his own is soft, but sure. When Eren pulls back, he looks calm, waiting for Levi to react. Levi exhales, shoulders slumping as he leans forward to rest his forehead against Eren’s, exhausted. His hands in Eren’s are warm now, so he moves to grip Eren’s shoulders, kunckles aching with the movement.

Eren moves with him, quietly observing him, allowing Levi to touch, fingertips dragging over Eren’s cheek, Eren’s ear, Eren’s neck - Eren, alive and whole like a miracle. The feel of his hair - now so long it was almost unfamiliar - is cool and smooth under the callouses of his fingers, and Eren’s eyes drift closed as Levi scrapes his fingers over his scalp.

"Levi," Eren whispers, eyes dark, hopeful.

Levi relents.

 

Eren stays.


	40. Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A day in the life on the 25th of December.

They have traditions, nothing all that elaborate - formed in the urban setting of their lives. The both of them are always working, and neither of them care that much about holidays - that being said, Christmas is special. 

Eren likes Christmas because he used to celebrate it with his mother, and Mikasa and Armin would come over when they were kids and things were warm with the smell of Mum’s cooking and things were good- 

And then not so much. 

So Levi makes an effort for Christmas - despite his initial aversion to the holiday, anything is bearable, if it is for Eren’s sake - because he knows it heals Eren, every year they celebrate Christmas as synonymous with  _family_.

* * *

It’s a rare day-and-a-half off, so they take the time to clean up their apartment a little, putting away things and cleaning (Levi is always pleased when the floors are freshly wiped, and Eren doesn’t mind spending Christmas Eve cleaning, not when the wonderful domesticity of winter and the off-season smell of lemon-scented disinfectant becomes synonymous with a whole day in Levi’s presence, the fresh warm smell of him close and near.

They cook. Or rather, Eren cooks, and Levi occasionally fetches water or a spice that Eren needs. Otherwise, he leans on the doorway to the kitchen (because he’s usually banished when multiple preparations clash and Eren needs to concentrate on the food) and watches Eren cook, pleased and proud, filled with a fierce love for his partner. 

When the turkey is safely in the oven and Eren takes off his apron and wanders to the couch to lie about, Levi wipes his brow and leans over him to press a kiss to Eren’s forehead. They end up on the couch, entwined and warm under a blanket, just chatting and lying around, Eren draped all over Levi like an overgrown house cat. It is warm, like their house is, and Levi is content to just pet Eren and recover from the stress and flurry of activity that is their daily lives. 

He tells Eren he loves him, just to see the way Eren smiles all the way up to his eyes, just to push Eren’s bangs out of his face and kiss him soundly until Eren is laughing breathlessly into his mouth, cheeks red and eyes bright. He kisses him again, hands creeping under the hem of Eren’s sweater to brush at his sides, to hear that breathless laugh one more time.

* * *

Eren is warm and heavy against him, gasping and warm and a perfect reminder that they have achieved family and love in a house that won’t crumble.

* * *

The turkey inevitably becomes overcooked, but Eren is all loose-limbs and happy smiles, and dinner is still good despite the extra effort it takes to chew the poultry. They talk about some plans, discuss the future, make vague plans about trips and things they would like to do. A few reminders about bills and errands are made, but put off for another day that is less dedicated to being happy and lazy and in love. 

They put the leftovers away, and Levi does the dishes while Eren dries them. When everything is clean again, and the both of them are slightly less stupidly sleepy and full from dinner, they head out to the balcony, despite the cold. 

Eren’s made hot chocolate for himself, and a cup of coffee for Levi. They lean against the banister, shoulders pressed against each other, and talk into the night. 

 _Happy Christmas,_ they whisper. Tomorrow is another day, back into the schedule of their lives, but today is theirs. 

 


	41. Gods Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They always meet again. Greek Gods AU

They always meet again. Eren assumes it has something to do with the Moiriai - the Fates had always had a perverse sense of humour.

Artemis had found him first. He had been in a fight, as was common at the time - he was gaining the upper hand against a trio of upperclassmen, the memory of war simmering in his too-small limbs. He had swung out, certain of his victory, complacent in the way youths were (Gods are the same in this), when he saw the shape of a baseball bat hurtling towards him - but the impact never came to shatter the back of his skull - instead he saw dark hair, a red backpack, and the unfamiliar profile of a young girl. When all his opponents were strewn across the dusty ground, she had turned around, touched his bruised face with pale fingers, and said, “Brother.”

He calls her sister, as is right. The school assumes they are a couple, and his uncle teases him for the way he looks at her as she walks. He snorts, and brushes the insinuations away. The scarf he gave her waves like a war banner in the wind, and it makes him nostalgic.

 

—

 

Athena, they found in University, one of the youngest students on campus and the brightest by far. Eren sends him a friend request online, and when he doesn’t respond, he sends another message with the wikipedia link to Athena, and a bad joke about how his hair in this life isn’t much of an improvement. Armin Arlert accepts his friend request. When the three meet up, Mikasa brings him a T-shirt with an owl print - Athena’s motif - on it as a present. Armin laughs, amused, and they talk late into the night about their new lives.

 

—

Finding his siblings helped, but Eren is still unable to find peace - Mikasa and Armin understand - they have always been more even tempered than he - and some things do not change. He waits, instead, walking through the city and searching for the one person he has still been unable to find. He goes to museums and looks intensely at paintings and marble busts, staring at painted wings and clenching his jaw at the hot hard spike of longing that rises within him like bile.

 

—

 

He sees the faint outline of wings under a thin T-shirt, and the tattoo is like any other on any stranger’s skin, but Eren knows that shape, he has seen it on the back of his eyelids every night since his memories returned. He runs, knocking people aside, until he finally nears enough throw and arm out and drag the man into a side street. Eren’s desperation lends him strength, and while the stranger struggles Eren doesn’t stop until they are alone. He loosens his grip - and finds himself pinned within seconds to the wall, arms twisted behind his back, and he laughs, tears in his eyes, even as the stranger snarls in his ear.

“I’ve found you, oh Gods,” he chokes, and he twists around just enough to look at Nike in his steel-grey eyes. He looks shocked, eyes wide and beautiful. Eren’s mouth trips on Greek and Latin and he’s babbling now, _Victoria Victoria Victoria I’ve found you_ \- the mans grip loosens, and the sharp despair that is rising up in Eren is reminding him that he might have gotten it wrong, might have dragged a stranger into an alley - his hopes are so painfully high that if they are dashed now he will not survive - he needs Nike, needs him the way War is just slaughter without Victory - and Eren chokes on a sob, until warm hands find his face again.

“Ares,” the man breathes, wondrous and tentative, “is that you?”

 

Eren nods, and breaks apart.


	43. Daemon AU I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daemon AU

When they were free of the Underground, Levi’s daemon had flown free for the first time, wings beating even as she shifted - sparrow- martin - hawk - and the sight of her against a blue sky, with nothing to force her flight down - Levi’s chest aches at the sight, and he tells himself it’s because Aesuithiel had flown too far. He feels the gaze of Erwin Smith’s golden eagle daemon resting upon him, and turns to face Smith directly.

(When he had first seen her, she had been perched proudly on the soldier’s shoulder. A being so capable of flight couldn’t possibly be from the Underground. He was right. When she took flight, Levi’d been stunned by the sight of that enormous wingspan, proud fierce, and something inside him had ached for that freedom. He had thought, then, that he would follow this man to whatever end, if it had meant that Aesuithiel would be spared being tucked against his chest, keeping to small forms just so as to present less of a target in the Underground.)

He agrees to join the Survey Corps.

 

—

 

When Eren was 9, Otsana had, as was normal, not settled yet. She had shifted freely, and Eren had not thought overmuch about her settling. In that cabin, Otsana had shifted into a large dog, snarling at the sight of the Ackerman girl on the floor. Even when Eren himself had been pinned against the wall, air choking out of him, she had kept snarling, shifting from predator to predator to try and escape from the mastiff daemon pinning her down. Mikasa Ackerman’s daemon had settled that night, as she drove a knife between a man’s ribs and made the choice to survive.

—

 

Carla Jeager notices that ever since her husband and son returned with a quiet young girl in tow, Eren’s Otsana had been shifting into larger animals, dogs and foxes and civets, all of which were predatory. She looses her temper at him when he says he wants to join the Survey Corps. Regret and worry rise up in her throat as she watches her son run out of the house.

—

He notices that the recruit’s daemon is large, a black shape in the dimness of the cell. Levi sees the burning brightness of Eren Jaeger’s eyes, and Aesuithiel stirs at his shoulder.

“I know,” he whispers to her, hand absently reaching up to stroke at her feathers as volunteers to be responsible for the boy.

—

The boy’s daemon causes the people in the courtroom to whisper, fear in their eyes as they looked upon the wildness of his fur and the rangy strength of her legs, and branded Eren Jeager too dangerous. When Levi swings his foot into Eren Jeager’s face, Aesuithiel had flown down, lightning fast, to grip at the wolfdog’s throat. The larger daemon had snarled, at first, a vicious sound, before it had stilled, gone silent in the face of talons at her throat.

—

Aesuithiel had later told Levi, that night, that the wolfdog Otsana did not, in fact, struggle much in the courtroom, laying down and obedient as though she had trusted the hawk not to hurt her overmuch. Levi considers Eren Jeager’s honesty after the trial, and raises his opinion of the young boy.


	44. Daemon AU II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a continuation on the daemon AU. Files. Information.

**Name** : Eren Jeager

 **Daemon** : Otsana (Wolfdog, Canis lupus familiaris / Canis lupus Hybrid)

Eren’s daemon settled a week after the fall of wall Maria. After Carla - Otsana had shifted sporadically, almost frantically, changing to small furry animals to nestle in the crook of Eren’s throat in an attempt to comfort her human- but that size had felt painful and uncomfortable, and there was no comfort that would soothe Eren then. She spends a week in canine form, trying dogs and foxes, and Eren looks at her, stroking the broad flat of her head and asks if she feels like a dog.

“Not really, I’m not sure yet,” She says, troubled. Eren pulls her close, fingers buried in her fur.

—

Armin has a book on daemons, and it is there that they find an entry under W: Wolfdog. ‘Known for being fiercer than wolves, wolfdogs are larger than their wild counterparts. Wolfdogs daemons, extremely rare, are known to belong to historically violent figures, conquerors and murderers.’

Eren blanches a little, but he had understood even then that inside him was a snarling thing the day he met Mikasa and fought monsters in men’s skins. Otsana looked apologetic, ears flattening as a low whine began deep in her throat. Eren strokes her head, and whispers to her fiercely.

“Don’t be sorry. You are perfect. If you’re fiercer, that just means we’re stronger. We’ll kill every single last one, remember?” Otsana shuffles closer, head against Eren’s cheek, tail tucked between her legs.

—

When he shifts for the first time, he doesn’t remember what happens, and he is carried by Mikasa and Armin to stand trial for being a titan. Otsana had laid at his knees, barely conscious, until he himself had awoken to gunfire.

—

Mikasa told him, later, that Otsana had been fused with his Titan flesh, and that they had to cut her out. They had to carry her, the both of them, and their daemons has carried her, the humans too reluctant to breach that taboo, even for them.

—

When Levi first has to cut Eren out, he is glad that his own daemon had sharp talons, so that she could pull Otsana out without him touching her. Even so, some of the flesh was too fused with her, and practicality won out against all else. “I apologise,” he whispers, as he lays a hand on Otsana’s flank and pulls her free. A frisson of awareness shoots up his arm, and Eren stirs, even in his fever-haze. He shakes off the sensation, unsettled, and calls for his squad mates to help get Eren back to base.

—

 **On Daemons in the Military** :

Flying daemons tend to be common within the scouting Legion. It takes a certain kind of person to want to go out beyond the walls, a certain need for open skies. (Petra’s father had looked at his daughter when she was 13, finch daemon perched on her shoulder, and hoped fervently that she wouldn’t prove his fears right.) Some daemons in the scouting legion, while not capable of flight, are small enough to be tucked into the uniforms of the soldiers, so a flighted-daemon is by no means a prerequisite for recruitment into the corps. The military police and garrison tend to have more landed animals. (Hans had a basset hound, doleful and sweet but fierce when it counted.)

It is also worth noting that some members of the scouting legion with bird daemons have a higher threshold of separation from their daemons, though the distance is not comparable to that of a 'full’ separation.


	45. Flight Patterns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steampunk AU

Eren Jeager steps onto the brig of Her Majesty’s Airship the Maria Vega, absentmindedly wiping the grease from his cheek, before snapping to attention as he registers Levi looking at him, expression unimpressed, a thin eyebrow lifted every so slightly. “

Captain Levi,” he greets, swallowing nervously. The captain looks annoyed, and Eren doesn’t want to be saddled with extra cleaning duty (again).

“Jeager,” Captain Levi approaches him, boots clicking on the immaculate floor. The Maria was the cleanest ship amongst the Corps, Eren knows this.

“Who gave you clearance to run drills for offensive maneuvers?” Levi asks.

Ah. Shit.

“It’s been slow today, sir, and Ral said it would be alright, surely, if we practiced just a little,” Eren begins, wondering if he’d get Petra in trouble for this. Levi sighs, exasperated, and Eren thinks he can hear Levi muttering under his breath about speaking to Petra.

“I’m sure you know that our squad’s being scrutinised a lot more thanks to the higher ups watching you, Jeager. Don’t give them an excuse to come investigate; we have better things to do. If you want to practice, get clearance from me first, understood?”

“Sir.” Eren snaps a salute, tentatively relieved that he didn’t seem to be in too much trouble.

“And you’re on kitchen duty, today, too,” the Captain adds. So much for getting off scot-free, Eren thinks to himself, before catching himself and nodding obediently, before asking,

“Is there anything you’d like to have, sir?” knowing that out of the entire squad, Eren’s cooking is considered a treat. (Hanji had been on duty for the past week, after all.) Levi narrows his eyes at him, and Eren can _see_ him deciding if that small amount of insubordination is worth the effort of reprimanding him again.

“Watch it, Jeager, or I’ll put you on cleaning duty as well,” Levi growls, and the sound does something strange to Eren’s gut, and he tenses, slightly, as his Captain leans into his personal space.

“How long did it take you to perform the drills, earlier, Eren?” Levi asks, nonchalant and soft, and the use of his name sends his pulse up, almost like he was in the cockpit again. Eren swears that he can feel Levi’s breath against him - he’s so close - and stammers,

“Just under three minutes per set, Captain.” This close, Eren can see the shift in Levi’s expression – Levi’s impressed, just slightly.

“Not bad,” Levi says, and the bloom of warmth in his chest that always accompanies his Captain’s praise makes Eren flush.

“Take it down to two and a half minutes and we’ll make a pilot out of you yet,” Levi says, and Eren sputters, because Levi knows he’s that he’s the only one so far who has managed that time - they don’t call him Humanity’s strongest for nothing - and Eren cannot tell if Levi was joking or actually holding Eren to his own standard, and if he was Eren cannot possibly contain his happiness at the thought that Levi might think him capable - His ears are beet red now, he’s sure, and Levi looks pleased, a curl to his thin lips that has Eren swallowing around a suddenly dry throat.

Levi’s looking at him, appraising his flush, eyebrow rising slightly as he makes sense of the tense set of Eren’s shoulders. He lifts a palm up, swiping at the grease on Eren’s cheek, and Eren stops breathing altogether. Levi looks at the grease on his fingers, and then back up at Eren. “You’re dismissed, Eren. You should clean up before you head to the kitchens.” Eren somehow manages to salute once more, and flees the brig, face burning where Levi had touched.


	46. Freshly Fallen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren tempts Levi to fall

When he touches him, it is fire and coal under his palm, and his hands come away singed. Eren’s chest rises and falls, and the rhythm of it makes Levi feel like he’s at sea, unmoored and just on the edge of a storm. The light flickers on the scales scattered all over Eren’s shoulders, and with each shudder come’s a flicker of iridescence, blue-green, blue-green.

Levi hisses, whispers, into Eren’s ears, holds him down and palms at his skin-hide-scales, feeling the heat and magic thrumming just beneath his fingers.

“I thought you didn’t want to fall,” Eren hisses, voice raspy and rough, like something dragged out of a dark cave. It makes Levi shiver. Levi’s wings have started to feel hot, burning at the base between his scapulae. He twitches them so that Eren can see, see how they were singed at the tips, white giving way to ash giving way to black.

“I’ve already sinned beyond what can be forgiven, Eren,” Levi whispers. He reaches down, and by the time his lips reach Eren’s, his wings are tar-black and burning.


	47. Ink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m thinking of getting another backpiece done. Will you do it?”
> 
> Tattoo Artist AU where Eren’s starts apprenticing at Levi’s tattoo studio.

At 18, Eren had saved up and gotten a piece done by Levi, curling over his left rib.

Levi had been less established, then, fresh out of the streets in a dingy part of town, his studio barely a space in a worn-down building. On the inside, however, it had been immaculate. Levi had taken one look at Eren and expected another impulsive teenager wanting to get some ink. But the kid had been surprisingly well researched and sure of his design. (A date, in script, of his mother’s passing.)

—

5 years later, Eren shows up at Levi’s studio to begin his apprenticeship. Eren is talented, and more importantly, hardworking. While cleaning up the studio after work hours one day, Levi asks Eren what other ink he has. Eren blushes, embarrassed.

“I actually have one by you,” he says, “but I don’t think you remember.”

“Show me,” Levi says, softly.

Eren blinks, and after a moment, shrugs off his T-shirt. He twists, showing Levi the script over his left rib. Levi draws close, fingers barely brushing over the script.

“I remember this. Five years ago. Your mother…?” he murmurs, glancing up at Eren.

Eren nods, surprised, oddly warm at the thought of Levi remembering. The edge of sadness that remains at the loss of his mother passing makes him more honest, and he says, uncertain, “I kind of got into tattoo art because of you, Levi.”

Levi blinks, slightly taken aback at such an admission. He doesn’t know what to make of such information, but there is warmth in his smile when he looks back and Eren, oddly fond and protective as he ruffles his apprentice’s hair.

—

“Can you do a backpiece on me?” Eren asks, “Freehand?”

The trust that Eren has, clear in his steady gaze, and Levi swallows around the lump in his throat as he nods.

A week later finds Eren, shirtless on his chair, as Levi bends over to begin tattooing the now-familiar tanned skin. When he’s done, he watches as Eren looks at his tattoo in the mirror, flushed and pleased and still-unsteady from the pain. He sways, and Levi had been expecting this, had been prepared for it, but Levi isn’t prepared for the smell of Eren’s hair right under his nose as he slumps against Levi, warm and soft and startled and embarrassed.

“Ah, sorry. Ugh, you’d think I’d know better,” Eren laughs, still half-caught in Levi’s arms. Levi snorts, and manoeuvres Eren into the chair once more, and tosses a granola bar at him.

“You haven’t eaten, have you?” he asks. Eren shakes his head, slightly guilty, and begins biting into the bar. He speaks, in between bites,

“Thank you, Levi. The piece is amazing, I don’t believe you did it freehand.” Levi reaches his hand out, fingers lightly brushing over Eren’s other ink.

“I expect you to take excellent care of it, Eren.” he says, mock sternly. Eren straightens, suppressing a shiver.

“Of course!!” Eren begins, flustered.

Before he can continue, Levi laughs, a low chuckle that has Eren twisting over in curiosity to see the expression on his face.

“I know kid. This one’s still in excellent shape,” Levi says, pressing lightly at the first tattoo he’d ever given Eren. Eren swallows, and fits his hand over Levi’s, over his rib. Levi starts, only then realising their proximity in the silence of the studio, the satin slip of Eren’s skin under his fingers. This close, he can see the details of the falcon curving over Eren’s shoulders, and the gold-green of his eyes.

“It was important to me,” Eren says, softly. He leans in, and Levi doesn’t know how he can be so sure, he is still so painfully young, and Levi’s all of 31 but he cannot move, not until Eren’s breath is ghosting across his face and his palm is still on Eren’s rib that Levi feels something within him give, and he presses forward, hungry for the taste of Eren. Levi kisses him, and Eren’s mouth opens willingly, pliant and soft and hot.

When they break apart, Eren is all smiles and boyish youth, and Levi presses close again, hand still curled over the ink on Eren’s ribs.


	48. I found a Stray Outside my Door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For a short story class. Eren, spring, fire escapes, and the lingering taste of coffee alongside the warmth of someone new in your life.

They meet in the Spring and there is the bloom purple flowers against a blue, blue sky, echoing a bruise purpling across the boy’s left cheek.

Levi looks at the kid that was slumped outside his window on the fire escape at 5:27 am in the morning, sighs, and herds him inside. He uses one hand to send off an email to his boss that he’d be working from home today, and another to gently guide the boy down the hall and into the bathroom.

“Can you stand?” he asks, and the boy only shakes his head, green eyes barely blinking as he looks at Levi like he’s a puzzle to be solved.

“Here, lean against the wall for a bit,” Levi says, and ducks out into the hallway to fetch a stool. When he returns, the boy is somehow still upright. He sits the boy down, and places a bucket and a washcloth next to the bathtub. 

“If you can’t stand long enough to shower, just use this and wipe yourself off. I’ll be right outside. If I don’t hear any sounds for more than three minutes, Im coming in here, alright?” 

The boy blinks, and nods once. 

* * *

Levi doesn’t _exactly_  have a policy of taking in strays, but it is known that he cannot turn away someone in need of help. He has been there, shivering and bruised and with nowhere to go. He thinks of the purple blooming across the boy’s skin, and grits his teeth. 

The shower is still running. 

* * *

 

When the boy emerges, the grime and crusted blood has been washed off, leaving only pink skin and the puckered edge of scars still fresh. Levi moves carefully, slowly, and approaches with a first aid kit. 

“Do you have a name I can call you by?” he asks, quietly.

A pause.

“I am Eren,” the boy says. 

“I’m Levi,” he replies, and the boy smiles. 

 

* * *

 

Eren is on his couch, sleeping soundly, when Levi goes to bed for the night. 

In the morning, he is gone, a half-drunk cup of coffee and a note under it. 

 _Thank you_ , it says, script untidy. Levi looks at Eren’s signature-scrawl and sighs. 

He returns to his daily life, but for some reason he doesn’t use that mug as often anymore.

* * *

 

Two weeks later he sees Eren sitting on the fire escape outside his apartment, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder and a fresh bruise mottling under his eye. 

Levi lets him in.

* * *

 

“Are you here because you need somewhere to stay, kid?” Levi asks, already knowing the answer.

Eren fidgets, refusing to meet Levi’s eyes. 

“I don’t have anywhere to go,” he says. 

“Alright,” Levi says, because the quaver in Eren’s voice and the pull of his mouth makes him think of Isabel when she was about to cry, and there really isn’t anything he can do in the face of that.

* * *

 

Eren flinches when Levi reaches beyond him to grab something from the shelf, and Levi curses himself when he sees Eren step back from him, eye’s wide and breathing far too fast.

“Eren,” Levi says, voice pitched low and as soothing as he can manage, “Easy, Eren. It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Eren stills, eventually, with a murmured, “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” not meeting Levi’s eyes.

* * *

That night, Eren is curled tight on Levi’s couch, breathing hitched and shoulders quivering. Levi drapes another blanket over him, and sits on the floor with his back against the sofa. 

“I’m sorry,” Eren whispers, over and over again, shuddering.

“Go to sleep, Eren. I’ll be here,” Levi says, heart aching with his own memories.

* * *

They talk, some nights when insomnia has them both awake. Eren’s presence is soothing in a way that Levi had never considered. They learn enough about each other, carefully skirting around topics that both have enough sense to leave alone.

Even so, knowledge about the other seeps through, and Eren knows enough by now to recognise the tense set of Levi’s shoulders and bring out the peppermint tea. Levi can recognise the defensive curl of Eren’s body when he tries to sleep on bad nights, so he sits with Eren in the living room, talking about nothing in particular until he hears Eren’s breathing even out. 

* * *

 

“So you just took him in?” Levi’s friend is asking, slightly incredulous and fond. Hanji knows him, has known him for years, and knows why he let Eren in and keeps letting Eren in.

“It just happened,” he says, shrugging. “He’s not a bad kid, and one more mouth to feed isn’t going to hurt me much. Once he gets on his feet, he’ll leave, so this is just temporary.” 

For some reason, the thought of Eren gone leaves a bitter taste in Levi’s mouth.

* * *

“I got a job,” Eren says, looking at Levi uncertainly.

“Oh? Congratulations. Where at?” 

“Just at Sina Cafe, it’s nothing much, but I should be able to get back on my feet, soon.”

“It’s a start, Eren,” Levi says, “One thing at a time.” 

Eren smiles. It’s weak, but it’s a start.

* * *

 

Eren comes home after his first day of work, slumping against Levi like he’s exhausted. Levi tilts his head to look at Eren better.

“How was it?” 

“Hngh,” Eren sighs, and Levi can feel the warmth of his breath even through the cloth of his sweater. 

“I almost had a panic attack halfway through, but it went well. It went okay,” Eren says, exhausted and faintly happy.

Levi smiles, and cards a hand through Eren’s hair, ruffling it.

“You did good, kid.” 

Eren stills under his hand, and for a moment Levi worries that he had miscalculated - he doesn’t touch Eren much, not after that flinch, and Levi knows that a stranger’s touch is usually unwelcome - he freezes, too, until Eren leans further against Levi, sighing contentedly. 

Levi blinks at the sight of Eren all but half-asleep slumped against his shoulder, the fan of his lashes and the smooth slip of his hair under Levi’s fingers. He swallows compulsively, unsure of the way to deal with the sudden bloom of affection he’d seemed to accumulate for his unofficial flatmate.

When Eren pulls away and looks up at him, Levi is still caught in his realisations, and the green of Eren’s eyes and his murmured, “Thank you, Levi. For being here.” does nothing to help.

When Eren leaves to shower, Levi scrubs a hand down his face and sighs. 

* * *

“My father kicked me out,” Eren says, matter-of-fact over a cup of tea one evening. 

“He called me, earlier,” Eren begins again, haltingly, “I don’t even know how he got my number. Wants me to go back home.” 

Levi pauses, and says carefully, “Do you _want_  to go back?”

The look of abject horror on Eren’s face is answer enough. 

“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” Eren says, eyes downcast and all Levi can remember is the sight of Eren, so many months ago, bruised and beautiful against a blue sky, sitting his fire escape with nothing more than a bag slung over his shoulder.

“You do, Eren,” and Levi feels like he’s damning himself with his words, but the look on Eren’s face is enough, and Levi is prepared for Eren shuffling over to hug him - he knows the boy is probably touch-starved - but he is not prepared for the smell of shampoo under his nose and the warm softness of Eren, always Eren, in his arms.

“I do, don’t I?” Eren mumbles into his shirt, and when he looks up at Levi his smile is watery, and it is all Levi wants to see. 

* * *

At the end of that month, Eren passes Levi a cheque. 

“For Rent,” he says, a touch nervous. Levi blinks, and then nods, placing the cheque in his wallet carefully. 

“Okay,” Levi says, simply, ignoring the smile that threatens to pull his mouth sideways at the thought of Eren _staying_.

* * *

 

When Levi finally kisses Eren, it is Spring again, and the bloom of purple flowers against a blue, blue sky echoes the bloom of warmth between them, hands cold on the railing of the fire escape.


	49. Paint Fumes

_It must be the fumes from the paint,_  he thinks muzzily, mind distracted and eyes fixated on the curve of Levi’s forearm. 

It’s the sixth night running on caffeine and a scattered handful of hours, and by this time Eren can _feel_  the skin under his eyes dragging and folding against the bone of his eye sockets. He’s almost seeing double, but his hands (thank god) are still steady as he twists his fingers in minute increments to try and paint his midterm. 

He gets to blame the paint fumes for the absolutely ridiculous thoughts and the state of his mind, because Levi Ackerman is sitting three feet away from him and bending over his own painting and this is the second time Eren has almost drank from his solvent jar instead of his coffee. It doesn’t help that both fluids have a rather horrifying grey-burnt umber cast to them. 

Levi’s been in a few of Eren’s classes so far, and they’d gotten relatively close as they conferred over materials and assignment guidelines. This midterm is relatively new, though - Levi has been coming to school to work more often than not (apparently his studio at home had a leak and he can’t work anymore, not that Eren had been eavesdropping, not at all), so Eren has had the pleasure of seeing him more often this term.

Pleasure.

That’s the thing. It _shouldn’t_  be a pleasure - it’s midterms and Eren feels like death and scholarship review is coming up, he’s stressed and frazzled and for some reason he knows that Levi has exactly four freckles scattered about the side of his neck. 

He blinks when he realises he’d been staring, and Levi had been staring back for the better part of the last two minutes. He gestures vaguely, trying to think of an excuse. Ah.

“Uh, Levi? Can I borrow some cad red?” Oh shit. No, it’s abundantly clear that he has more than enough cadmium red, _nobody_  finishes their tubes since it’s such a bright colour. 

Too late. Levi is walking over, tube of paint in hand. 

“You have plenty of cadmium, Eren,” comes the smooth murmur, and holy shit Levi is frowning slightly at him over the rim of his glasses and Eren thinks he has a thing for glasses, now. 

“Oh. Yeah, sorry,” he says, embarrassed. 

Levi doesn’t reply, leaning over his shoulder to look at his painting.

“It’s looking good,” he says, “Prof’s gonna like it.” 

Eren grins, pleased and happy and momentarily distracted by the praise.

Levi looks at him, and- laughs. 

Eren hasn’t seen that before, and he regrets that he hasn’t because it’s breathtaking; Levi’s lips curling up and the dent of his cheekbones and the cool white of his teeth - Levi looks unabashedly _happy_ , no sarcasm or wry humour, and Eren tries not to blink.

“Idiot, you’ve got paint on your chin, you look hilarious,” Levi says, smiling. “I didn’t notice, before.” 

 _I didn’t notice that you looked gorgeous when you smiled, either,_  Eren thinks stupidly.

Levi looks at him oddly.

Oh. Shit.

He’d said that aloud.

He turns bright red, mortified and stammering disclaimers before he realises that there the faintest dust of pink on Levi’s pale cheeks, and that he hasn’t gotten hit yet.

“I uh,” he tries, helplessly. Levi leans forward, tentative and wary, putting a hand on Eren’s chin and tipping his face closer. 

His hand is warm.

His lips are warmer.

When Levi pulls away after a closed-lipped press of chapped lips against chapped lips, there’s a smear of blue paint on his thumb, and Eren laughs at the sight.

It really must be the paint fumes, but Eren can’t bring himself to mind.


	50. Don't Say You're Done

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Warnings for deathwish)
> 
> A moment of weakness.

“I can’t do this.” 

Eren’s voice is tamped down to barely a whisper, but the sound of that sentence is enough to knock the breath out of Levi’s lungs.

“Eren,” he says, unsure of what to do. 

“I’m so tired,” Eren says, and he finally looks up and meets Levi’s eyes - Levi doesn’t know what to _do –_ Eren’s never looked so exhausted before, eyes rimmed red and the skin of his face thinner than it ever was. Levi can see his cheekbones, and they are sharp and beautiful in a way that is all wrong. 

It’s night, and it’s quiet and still - everyone else has long gone to sleep, and Eren and Levi are the only ones outside, breathing the still, clean air and sharing in the silence at the end of the day. Levi had found Eren out here a few weeks ago, eyes bruised dark with insomnia. He wonders when the last time Eren got some sleep was. 

Eren is trembling beside him, and Levi doesn’t know what to do, beyond sit in silence and watch his charge break apart from grief. 

“I can’t die - I’m humanity’s last hope-” he says, and the catch of his voice makes Levi pause, uneasy. 

Does that mean he _wants_  to die? 

“Eren,” he says again, stern this time. The tone of command in his voice has Eren straightening instinctively, and Levi suppresses the shiver of pleasure at the sight of Eren’s obedience.

Eren looks at him, lost in his youth.

“Captain,” he says in reply. His lips are trembling.

Levi sighs, and reaches forward, hand grasping Eren’s shoulder and _pulling–_ until Eren stumbles close, hands coming up instinctively to curl against his chest until he meets Levi’s body, his palms flattening out to press against the white of Levi’s shirt. The sound he makes is undignified, and it makes Levi smile, just a little.

“You will be strong, Eren,” Levi says, stern and commanding and every bit the young, ruthless captain of the Scouting Legion. 

“You will be strong, and we’re going to win. Understood?” 

Eren ducks his face down, cheeks pressing against Levi’s neck, and despite his attempts to hide his reaction Levi can still feel the warm damp spread of tears on his shirt, and the shudder of Eren’s shoulderblades under his palms.

“Understood, sir,” Eren whispers, and Levi thinks he can hear a hint of a smile rounding out those words. 


	51. Blonde

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the blond!Levi wave on tumblr. ErenLeviJean

Levi is bending over the sink as he bleaches the roots of his hair, top off and brows furrowed in mild irritation and concentration as he tries to get the hair at the back. The smell of it, the ammoniac sting hits Eren’s nostrils as he enters the bathroom quietly.

Eren steels himself. 

“D’you want me to help?” he asks. 

Levi looks up at him in the mirror, and in the over-warm light of their shared bathroom he is pale and beautiful, tattoos proud on his skin and the his piercings glinting from the shadows under his lip.

“Sure,” Levi says easily, handing Eren the applicator. Their limbs brush in the cramped confines in the bathroom, and Eren has to crowd Levi against the counter to reach the inaccessible parts of his hair. 

He gets almost gets bleach on his favourite shirt, so he makes a noise of irritation before yanking out of his _Titans_  band tee, and returns to concentrating on Levi’s hair – if he gets bleach on Levi he’s done for. 

Movement in his periphery draws his attention to the doorway, where Jean is leaning against the doorjamb, eyeing the both of them with barely concealed hunger. 

“Here, towels,” Jean says, voice low. The sound, and Levi’s proximity, the sudden exposed nape of his pale neck and the unexpected discovery of a spattering of moles over his left shoulder – it makes hunger curl in Eren’s gut, and his lids lower as he looks at Levi in the mirror.

The older man is bending down again, ignoring them in favour of washing the bleach out of his hair in the sink. When he straightens again, water runs in rivulets down his body, and Eren hears Jean’s sharp intake of breath.

“Fuck,” Jean mutters under his breath, and in all honesty, Eren had to agree. Levi was ridiculously, aggressively hot when blonde. 

Levi turns around, then, stepping close to Jean and taking a towel out of his hands. He towels his hair, and there, again, the flex of his torso nearly drives Jean to distraction. 

“Like what you see, Kirstein?” Levi says, voice full of gravel and invitation as he crowds them both against the door. Eren makes a noise, trapped between the both of them and thoroughly enjoying the view.

Levi turns to him, considering.

“I suppose I should thank you for your help, Eren.” Levi says, and the glint in his eye is the only warning Eren gets before Levi is kissing him, all teeth and metal as his piercing drags over Eren’s bottom lip.

“Fuck,” Jean repeats again, watching the proceedings and feeling the splotchy, volatile flare of heat from within his gut. 

‘I never should have told him he couldn’t pull of blonde hair,” Jean thinks to himself distantly as Levi’s eyes flick up to meet his even as Levi is busy reducing Eren to a quivering mess. 


	52. Northbound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You feel like coming home

It’s cold.

Eren can barely feel his fingers, but his hands hurt in the way dry air and cold weather always achieve, like his skin is brittle, one tug to tearing.

He’s spilling all over the place, gathering his boarding passes and passport and thumbing through them repeatedly; the paper feels insubstantial between his fingers, but right now they’re the most important things on his person. He must look a sight, he thinks, windswept and miserable on the curbside, suitcase on one side and a beat-up duffel slung over his shoulder. But he doesn’t care, not now, when his shuttle is pulling up. Smiling briefly at the driver and shoving his suitcase in the trunk, Eren clambers in, breathing the musty smell particular to shuttle buses, and waits.

* * *

 

“I’ll be waiting when you arrive.”

He’s checked the message periodically, thumbing through his password and swiping into his messages just to see that blue speech bubble again, burning the image in his mind as though he’ll forget. He’d just replied a scant affirmative, the two of them both ill-suited to the text-based affections that long-distance relationships required.

Eren was on the earliest flight out to Levi that he could afford. He felt like a sparrow coming home to roost, and it felt silly, over emotional of him; he was sure that levi managed in his absence.

Eren barely did. He knew it wasn’t good; that he was falling apart without the solid warmth of his partner; but his nights were cold even in the dizzy warmth of summer, and Eren was aching with the knowledge that his days were not meant to be spent without levi solid and safe at his back. It’s not like levi fixes everything, he thinks desperately, exhausted and trying to cling to wakefulness in the dim light of the plane.

He just makes things bearable.

He clenches his jaw, huddling into the rough knit of his scarf, and falls into an uneasy sleep.

* * *

 

The airport is surprisingly quiet, full of old people shuffling to family and the squeak of trolleys on the linoleum. Eren scans the floor, heart hammering in his chest and hands clenched too tightly on the handle of his suitcase- there, pale and beautiful, standing stiffly next to a group of exuberantly embracing people- Levi.

Eren walks. He feels like he should run, fling himself across the space between them, but he can’t bring himself to move, to think, he’s just staring straight at Levi and walking, brought to North unerringly. Levi just looks at him, an aborted movement in his legs like he was about to move; but he waits, steady and sure, taking the sight of Eren in like a man whose found the only thing that matters.

“Hi,” Eren breathes, hands coming up to grasp tentatively on the front of Levi’s jacket.

Levi says nothing, only reaches forward and gathers Eren close, pulling him in and anchoring him home like it was the only thing he ever wanted to do for four years.

“Hi,” he murmurs into Eren’s hair, and Eren can’t reply, shaking and clutching onto the smooth fabric, pressing himself close, aching to be under his skin, if only to get closer to this singular human being.

Eren shudders, and breathes easy for the first time in years.


	53. All you Gotta Do is Bite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pop Idols and Indie labels. A musician AU

Levi kind of thinks he’s pop trash, and sticks to his own indie brand of angsty guitar solos and angsty singing at a wildly panning camera while dragging only _one_  hand down his face in an abandoned air strip. The songs are catchy, though, so Levi listens to them, all the while considering himself above the genre. He doesn’t care for the theatrics, is all it is. The makeup, the lights, the sexed up image, the way Eren’s hips seem to move in every. Single. Video. Not that Levi has seen every one of Eren’s videos since his debut. The boy is cute, he admits, kind of buzzed one night after a concert, and Hanji is pressing him about why he knows the lyrics to _Touch my Wings_  when it comes up on the radio.

“You should… hit on him,” Hanji slurs, draping on him and laughing uncontrollably at the thought of the Ice Queen Levi Ackerman, lead guitar and vocalist of Bloody Handprint looking at the shiny new guy on the charts. Levi snorts, and makes a comment about how Eren Jeager is pretty much the symbol of Heterosexuality and the Mainstream, both of which were things Levi was… decidedly not, really.

Hanji drops the subject, but mainly because they fell asleep against Levi’s shoulder.

* * *

 

One day Eren does a music video in a miniskirt, all hip sway and hands running down tanned thighs. 

 _Take Down My Walls_  goes to a billion views on YouTube in record time, partly because it’s a damn good song, and partly because of Eren dancing in a 50s pinup style video.

A lot of people say he’s going to hell, and refuse to keep supporting him. 

Most of his fans, however, came to the ultimate conclusion that Eren Jeager looked damn fine no matter what he wore. 

Levi hits replay the moment the video stops, and doesn’t really know what to think. (He agrees, though. Eren  _does_  look damn fine.) 

* * *

 

Levi is really… not trawling the internet for Eren Jeager. 

He’s found Eren’s blog, though. The kid has a Tumblr, of all things. The only things he has learnt is that Eren likes cat videos, but writes the most in the tags at pictures of puppies. The kid takes selfies often, which is how Levi finds out that Eren is a fan. A selfie, Eren all tousled and grinning, a band Tshirt – _Levi’s_  band T-shirt, with a bloody handprint in red on dark grey. He scrolls quickly to the tags. 

#selfie #favshirt ngl #BloodyHandprint #faeijvwhyamIawakeee #6amdancepracticeCRUELTY

Levi laughs, despite himself. Eren was a fan, how about that.

* * *

The first time he meets Eren, it’s at the recording studio. Eren is apparently visiting his friend, who works with Levi’s label. The guy really _is_  that gorgeous, it’s kind of ridiculous. He nods at Mikasa, their label’s most popular act. (Picked up at 14 when she was found on YouTube under the handle RedScarfMikasa for her distinctive vocal quality) 

“Eren, this is Levi. Levi, Eren.” she says, curt in her usual manner. Levi nods, and extends a hand. Eren makes a strangled sound, and shakes his hand firmly, green eyes flicking up to meet Levi’s gaze for a moment, before stepping away. 

God, the kid was cute. Levi curses inwardly.

“I’m a huge fan, though I guess you hear this a lot,” Eren says, shy but grinning. 

Levi can’t help it. He smiles. “I saw a photo of you in our band shirt. You were at the 2013 tour?” 

“In Toronto!” Eren answers. Mikasa leaves after one of her sound engineers drag her attention away to work, and she tells Eren to stay put. 

“Levi, I’ll leave him here, if you’re free?” she asks. Levi nods. He likes Mikasa, and they have a good relationship based on mutual rivalry and respect. 

Eren sits down, all long limbs and easy grins, and Levi hands him a guitar. Eren takes it instinctively, fingers settling on the neck before he realises what’s in his hands.

Levi takes another guitar, and strums a few chords absently. 

“Mikasa’s going to take a while; Jean always takes forever when he’s going over the mixing,” he says, settling on a chord and playing it. “Wanna play?” 

Eren grins, and settles in his chair, fingers digging into the back pocket of his jeans for a pick.

* * *

 

They end up hanging out, after that first meeting. Mikasa and Hanji have some mutual friends, and his agent keeps telling Levi that he needs to ‘get out more’. They go for drinks, they go for coffee. They meet up at the studio and work on songs that never see the light of day. Levi makes fun of Eren’s pop aesthetic and strobe light MV’s, and Eren huffs and kicks Levi’s shins and says that at least he isn’t in the same abandoned warehouse head banging every other music video. Levi really does have to admit that Eren has a point. 

The next music video they do, they do it in the woods, and Eren laughs and laughs when he sees it. _I like the change of scenery! ;)_ the text from him reads, and Levi stares at it for far too long before he realises he’s grinning as well. 

Eren goes for the grunge aesthetic in his next video, and Levi will swear to every god ever that he was not expecting the sight of Eren clad in leather (those thighs, oh god) clutching at a microphone would ever do things to him. There are gratuitous close-ups of his lips, painted black, painted red mouthing the song, almost touching the microphone, and Levi is most definitely not thirsty as all hell. 

 _‘Nice pants’_ he sends to Eren, and the reply is a simple ‘ _;)’._

* * *

 

The next time Eren comes over, he’s wearing those pants. Levi has no idea why the studio let him keep them, because they were patently illegal. Whatever sarcastic greeting he had get stuck in his throat as he looks at Eren’s legs. 

“Hey, eyes up here!” Eren is laughing. “Also, good, I just wanted to confirm that you really have been staring at my butt,” he says as he shoulders past Levi to deposit their takeout lunch on Levi’s coffee table. 

Levi stares at Eren mutely, trying frantically to come up with a denial but failing. 

“I-shit. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Eren,” he begins, stomach lurching as he tries not to freak out. 

Eren’s eyes widen, and he puts his hands up placatingly. 

“Nonono. I uh,” he scratches the back of his neck, tugging at his ear in a nervous gesture that Levi has already begun to find utterly endearing, “I like that you are staring at my butt? Wow this is terrible. I’ve had a music-crush on you for a long time but uh. I really like you? In the I-want-to-make-out-with-you way, if that’s okay.” 

Silence. Eren is beginning to look panicked, as though he’d completely misjudged. Levi has to say something. 

“That’s uh. Very okay. Shit.” 

To be fair, Levi’s levels of articulation were low because of those pants. And Eren confessing. Eren blinks, and laughs breathlessly, and Levi can’t help but chuckle at how terrible they are at all this.

“You do realise you’re a national sex symbol, right?” he teases, as Eren makes his way across his living room to stand in front of him.

“You do realise you’re the same, right? You’ve been making love to microphones with black nail polish since I was 16, Levi,” Eren murmurs back, eyes lowered. 

Levi reaches a hand out. His fingernails are painted black, and he snorts. He reaches out, pressing a palm around the curve of Eren’s waist. It fits there easily, and he thinks he can get used to it; the same way he got used to the heft of a guitar, the surprising weight of a microphone in his hands.

When Eren kisses him, Levi leans back and parts his mouth easily, tasting soda and mint. The soft, wet heat of him is addictive, and his hands are palming all over Eren’s long, smooth body-

“You really like the pants, huh?” Eren laughs breathlessly. 

“They looked good in the music video,” Levi says by way of answer, heat curling in his gut as Eren presses closer. 

Eren pulls back, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “I kept the miniskirt from the other MV, too, you know.” 

Levi didn’t really know what he did to deserve this, but he regrets ever thinking of Eren as pop trash.


	54. Nothing quite so Divine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angels.

When Eren cries it’s like the world cries with him. Which is strange, Eren is just another boy in an aching world, and it shouldn’t feel like the universe sympathises when one human hurts. 

And yet. 

Levi looks at him, looks at that gentle curve of his shaking shoulders, and the curl of hair at his nape, and remembers that humans were made in the image of the divine. 

“Eren,” Levi says, voice hoarse. 

(His voice is always hoarse. It’s a byproduct of being stuck in a body that doesn’t actually accommodate all frequencies of your vocal range. Eren never seemed to mind the slight static hum that accompanied Levi speaking, so Levi spoke to him often.)

At the sound of his name Eren stills for a moment, and then curls in on himself once more, smaller still in the unlit room. Levi says nothing more, moving closer to Eren to place a hand on one soft shoulder. He’d thought to provide comfort, to anchor the boy, but feeling the warmth of Eren bleed into his cold palms Levi is the one who feels ungrounded. It feels like flying.

It feels more like falling.

* * *

 

The boy is asleep, salt-crusted and dehydrated as he curls in on himself on the battered sofa they’d gotten from Craigslist seven months ago. Levi himself is still awake, regarding Eren and trying to understand why he’d done this again, and let another human become singular to him. _What was the point in loving these dying children of God?_

“The point is to love them, Levi. That’s kind of in the job description, you know,” Erwin had once said, the vastness of his wingspan shading the two of them from the Babylonian sun. Levi had snorted, and said nothing then.

He looks at Eren, curled in on himself and exhausted, and it aches in what passes for his bones when he remembers the brightness of Eren when he smiles, before the world took Carla Jeager into its gaping maw and spat her back out bloody. 

* * *

 

“I’m Eren,” the kid said, eyes wide and curious, green as the original garden. Levi huffs a sigh, regarding the kid he’d just picked up from a back-alley brawl because he’d felt the same painful pull at his core that meant that this one human was going to cause him a lot of pain in the near future. Levi was also never good at ignoring children who went down fighting, anyways. 

The coffee is bitter, and it reminds Levi of gunpowder, and desert tents, carpet under his bare feet, and a girl he’d watched over as she went to war. She was named after a city that was supposed to be unending.

He’d visited the ruins of Petra, recently, still rose-touched and dusty at dawn, and he’d thought, ‘There is no human thing that has no end’.

He brings his attention back to Eren. Eren, of course, the boy’s name means _saint_ , and Levi would laugh but he doesn’t want to explain to this kid the bitter irony of an angel meeting someone named ‘saint’ in a crappy diner at two in the morning on a Thursday. Levi should have known that familiar burning at his throat, the one that felt like static turned high on the radio, the one that tasted of gunpowder and green leaves under his tongue. Levi should have known he would get attached.

* * *

 

“I know it’s stupid, but…what _is_ the point of all this?” Eren asks, his head pillowed on Levi’s lap. His eyes are still rimmed red, and for all the flippancy of his tone Levi can feel the bile-regret-exhaustion that clings to the walls of the apartment, that sits on the skin of Eren’s cheeks.

He pauses. Considers Petra, considers what Erwin said to him, back before he’d gotten overmuch into the habit of wearing human skin and living amongst the people he was supposed to look over. 

“I don’t know, Eren,” he says softly, voice its usual static hum. Eren closes his eyes and tilts his face up, as though wanting to get closer to the sound of Levi’s voice.

“If I knew, I guess I wouldn’t need to be here,”

Eren’s eyes flicker open, at this, searching Levi’s face like he’d never considered the possibility of Levi not being _there_. 

“Mm. I’m glad you don’t know then. I guess,” Eren says, doubtful, aching. He reaches up, and stops. The sound his harm makes as it hits the couch is overloud in the room.

Levi curls over Eren, protective, hand coming to the side of Eren’s face. “I’m not going anywhere, kid.” 

Eren laughs, and it sounds mostly false, mostly sharp edged with worry and doubt. But when he speaks again, the corners of his mouth are softer. Relieved.

 “Would you miss me otherwise?” 

Levi doesn’t speak for a while, and Eren’s face grows tight, his hands (warm, sun-warmed brown. Tanned from the sun, like Levi remembers humanity to be) curling into the wool of Levi’s sweater as though Eren needs to anchor himself to Levi before he floats away, quietly as he came into Eren’s life.

When Levi speaks again, his words are measured, carefully chosen– a confession, of sorts, though what he is trying to be absolved of he doesn’t know.

“I always do.” 

Eren relaxes, but his fingers are still curled in grey wool.

“You know Levi means ‘attached’, right? If I’d known that earlier maybe I would’ve asked for a different name.”  

As though you could change the name you _were._ At his core Levi was _Levi_ , and language endures. It’s the _word_  of the divine, after all. Names have meaning, so when Levi was named so he was doomed to an eternity of attachment, bleeding his nonexistent heart out for the saints and martyrs that came his way. 

Eren was the same.

Except, Eren was different. Eren made _attachment_  sound trite. When Eren cried, the world cried with him, and Levi is sure the aching sound ringing in his ears at the sight of the boy in misery is what tears would sound like.

“Are you?” Eren asks, quiet. “Attached, I mean.”

Levi looks at the boy lying across his lap, long-fingered hands holding on to Levi as though he wasn’t real. (A matter for further discussion, another time. _real_  was a very tenuous concept.) He thinks of the way Eren is every bit the 22 year old he is, human and silly and kind and angry. Thinks about Eren and his college debt and his love of dogs and the way he takes his coffee (iced, enough sugar to kill a child), and thinks of the way ribs attach to spines to shoulders. He thinks of the join of his wings under his scapulae, and thinks about the meaning of the word _attached._  

Sometimes his wings felt heavy. He wonders if Eren feels the same, with Levi joined to him, some divine being telling him to clean up and get some proper protein in his diet. He wonders if Eren knows the feeling of falling, too.

“I am,” Levi says. His voice is hoarse, static hum and not quite right. Eren tilts his face up, leaning towards the sound.


	55. warring stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a Star Wars AU

Mikasa and Eren end up on a refugee planet scavenging in the dust and fighting for survival. They save up enough to bribe passage off the planet, and run. Eren is determined to be of use, to get stronger, and to never have to _feel_  his loved ones disappear, ever again. When the ship they’re on gets raided by soldiers from Empire revivalist fractions, one of the soldiers grabs Eren and holds him hostage.

He is fifteen. 

He is vicious, and untrained in the Force and panicked as he was it is all he could manage to stab his attacker in the gut with a shard of transparisteel, before he is grabbed by the neck, armoured digits tightening in increments around his neck. Eren’s rage, however, _does_  manage to send a pulse of anger and violence palpable to anyone with even a speck of Force sense. 

On the bridge of the ship, midway through a clean arc of blinding blue-white light, Levi Ackerman paused in his utter decimation of enemy forces. 

“Tch, there’s something other than smuggled cargo on this ship.” 

He ran towards the direction of that violent, desperate feeling in the Force, hastened by its diminishing strength. Whoever it was that sent that ripple out, they were dying. 

* * *

“Kid, are you dead?” Levi asked, nudging the sizzling, now-dead body of the Empire soldier with his foot, freeing the boy from under it. 

“Eren!” Mikasa was running down towards them. She was covered in blood, most of it was clearly not hers. (Wrong colour.) She helped him sit up as she eyed Levi warily.

“Thanks for saving me,” Eren coughed, looking up at Levi, eyes watering. 

Levi didn’t answer, just regarded the two of them, huddled together and blood soaked, his Force-sense singing at the proximity of the two. He opened his mouth to say something, but then the entire ship _lurched_ with the distant sound of explosions. Levi, assessing his options, picked the two up, and ran.

* * *

 

“So I propose we bring them back with us. They can train under one of the old Masters.”

“Levi, we sent you and Smith to clean up the _Titan_  fraction, not bring back a couple of strays,” the council member sighed. 

Levi said nothing. Both Eren and Mikasa were newly washed and robed, standing neatly, if nervously, behind Levi as they waited for the verdict. Levi had picked them up and ran, and tossed them onto the Ranger starship that Erwin and Levi had used. “We’re taking you with us, kids,” he’d said. 

* * *

 

As a result of Levi adopting two youths and deciding to keep them, he was left with the responsibility to oversee their training. It was a rare case, for a newly appointed Master to have two apprentices, both so young and untrained, but Levi Ackerman himself was a rare case in almost all senses, and the Jedi Order was understaffed, as it was. They needed new blood, and Levi was nothing if not skilled in the arts.

* * *

 

“Concentrate, Eren. Empty your mind. I can _feel_  your frustration, you know,” Levi sighs, parrying Mikasa and twisting around to face the two. It had been four years, and the both of them had grown. Eren charged forward, braid trailing wildly behind him as he thrust his practice saber towards Levi. His feet were light, but his moves too obvious. Levi sidestepped and landed a blow against his neck lightly before flipping over him and parrying Mikasa, who had been circling around silently for a while now.

“That’s three for three, kids. Take a break,” he said, tossing towels towards his two charges. Mikasa was about ready to start being a fully fledged Knight. She had a razor-sharp focus and control of the Force, and the demeanour to conduct herself, as long as Eren wasn’t concerned. Eren was stronger, in a brute-force way. He had no subtlety, but the Force practically sang for him, when he needed it to. They would, before long, have to be separated.

* * *

 

The ceremony appointing Mikasa as a fully fledged Jedi Knight was small and quiet. She would be dispatched to a neighbouring planet as a bodyguard for a diplomat as her first mission. It would be three months before Eren heard from her without a comlink. He hugged her, their robes rustling as she adjusted her braid. 

“Here, take this,” Eren said, affixing something onto Mikasa’s hair. A red braided ribbon, in Alderaan colours. “For good luck,” he said, smiling as Mikasa engulfed him in a rib crushing hug. 

* * *

 

“It’s weird, now that it’s just the two of us,” Eren said, absently tugging at his braid. “What do we have to do on Corusant?” 

“Just a standard diplomacy meeting. It’s about time you figured out how to make nice with diplomats and the assholes of the bureaucracy,” Levi said, fiddling with the switches on their starship’s control board. 

Eren snorted. “Yeah, well I learnt how to play nice from you, oh Jedi Master mine.” 

A Force-enhanced forehead flick was surprisingly painful.  


	56. Supernova

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A war in the dark expanse of space.

With the vast expanse black closing in around them, harsh light and shadows fading to nothing, _Sina_  passed behind a planet. Expeditions in space were a particular blend of sensory over and under-load. The sound of breathing, artificial and loud over their comsets, and the sheer exhaustion that the time away from their home planet brings into their bones. 

The look of Levi, Humanity’s Strongest, frail and exhausted, bent over the sink and the cold white light showing the rippling shift of his muscles stretch over the bones of his ribs. Quiet in the common quarters, after the rest of the Scouting Leigion squad have left to sleep, night and day only an indication on their circadian monitors. Eren likes Levi the best at times like this, unguarded (in so much as Levi Ackerman can be unguarded), coffee-pack held loosely in his fingers as he tells Eren stories about what it was like to live on a non-planet settlement, to have the rocking sway of steel be the ground on which you lived for your entire life. Eren thinks about this. Eren thinks about Levi a lot, but mostly he thinks about the fact that Levi has never seen the sun rise over a horizon that was _his._

Eren wants to go home, and bring Levi home. Wants to strip off all the edges that have accumulated on his corporal, peel him out of his plug suit and wrap him in wool and cotton, want’s to take those off, too, and wrap himself around him. Eren doesn’t say anything about any of these thoughts, just looks at Levi Ackerman and his coffee-pack and his tired eyes in a profile rimmed blue from the light of their ship control displays, and falls a little bit further. 

* * *

 

His mother, clutched in a gaping maw, as the planet of Shiganshina fell to Titan forces. Alien, humanoid, something out of a nightmare of young children, except with armour and technology. 

They data-key that hangs around his neck still feels far too heavy. Eren fiddles with it, now a nervous habit that he’d never really been able to surpress. If they could infiltrate Shiganshina again, and find the encrypted data his father left, maybe…

* * *

 

The first time Eren sees Levi in his plugsuit is during his trial – the one where he was accused of being a Titan infiltrator. Amidst a roomful of people in their finery, their courtroom robes, and the splendour of their inertia billowing around them, Lance Corporal Levi is a figure cut in black and white, sleek and graceful. Eren is pretty sure it’s because Commander Erwin knew how to do PR, but the sight of him, blades hanging idly at his hips like a barely contained threat, and the metal insignias of the Scouting Leigion’s wings emblazoned on each shoulder- well. Eren swallows through a dry throat and laughs as an entire courtroom of people yelling for his execution suddenly sign over a release and transfer order.

He looks up to face Levi when the man comes to undo his manacles, eyes caught by the play of light shifting over the plugsuit. 

“Stop staring, Jeager. It’s just a uniform.”

“Yes sir,” Eren says. He doesn’t say its beautiful, but he thinks it all the same.

* * *

 

Alarms are blaring, and the entire ship is a flurry of action as their squad members rush to position. Levi springs into action, shouting out orders and taking command. Eren falls into place behind him, running through the corridors and following him into the suiting chambers. They strip without ceremony, and emerge half a minute later with the sleek coating of metal and synthetic fiber wrapped lovingly around them.  Eren spares a glance at Levi, the familiar pang of attraction tucked safely under his ribs at the sight of him, deadly and beautiful under the glare of the ship lights. 

“Get to your pod, and come back alive, kid. I’m not going after you if we lose you.” 

A lie. One that Levi has said on more than one occasion. Eren grins, snaps a quick salute, just as Sasha’s voice rings out over the speakers.

The titans are here.

* * *

 

When the dam of the feelings building between them finally bursts, its when they’re covered in Titan _and_  human blood, as well as machine oil. Eren is hauling Levi to the showers in an effort to sluice the grime off their suits. When he sets Levi down on the shower bench and moves away to turn on the spray, he gets jerked back down by a strong hand on his shoulder. 

“Don’t do that again, Eren.” Levi’s voice is barely more than a growl, his gloved hand digging into Eren’s neck. They’re far too close together, the both of them exhausted, worn down, and filthy. 

“I will if you’re not in danger again, sir,” Eren shoots back a little mulishly, far too conscious of the fact that he was hunched over his commanding officer while in a shower stall.

Levi sighs, slumping against Eren as his hand drops to lie limply at his side. “Don’t call me that when we’re in the showers, Eren,” he says finally, defeated.

He sounds so tired. 

Eren is tired, too, though in a different way. He looks at the curved shape of Levi beneath him, the slope of his neck and the wrap of skintight fabric over his trapezius, down his spine, black and chrome knobs marking each vertebrae, all laid vulnerable against him. 

He pushes away, and kneels down. 

When he kisses Levi, after 2 years of pining, it’s with the smell of blood and oil and water, and he can’t feel Levi’s skin through his gloves, though it catches, drags against his glove-grip when he tilts his commanding officer’s face into his.  

It’s like starbursts and a black hole all at once, both opening in his chest and expanding impossibly. It feels man-made for all the indications of industry around them, the fact that the very gravity they were in was artificial, but – but Levi’s lips are wet and thin against his, and he tastes like coffee, and the cling of his lashes against each other and the dark circles around both their eyes –here’s nothing artificial or artful about any of that. 

It’s human, and the both of them cling to it. 

* * *

 

“Fuck, Eren, fraternisati-” 

Levi’s breath stutters for a moment, thoughts ground to a halt as Eren shifts his hips against his, and Levi spares a thought for how plugsuits truly did not leave _anything_  to the imagination. 

He honestly does not give a fuck about most of the Leigion rules - this far out in space, a lot of things didn’t matter quite so much when you were on the front lines fighting for your life. But even so, Eren feels so young, and Levi cannot bring himself to not ask. 

He grabs Eren by the shoulders, stilling him as gently as he can. The look of him, desperate and straining, is almost enough to make Levi forget what he needs to say.

“I need to ask, Eren,” he begins, breathless and aching for this boy that’s stayed by his side and somehow, impossibly, remained alive for it. “Are you sure?”

Eren makes a frustrated noise, and then stills, leaning forward to butt his forehead against Levi. The look on his face is soft, and something in his expression makes Levi feel like he’s in zero gravity again, the first day he set foot in training, young and unsure and so fucking full of hope it hurt. 

“I’m sure, Levi,” Eren says, and Levi closes his eyes and lets out a breath.

When Eren gasps at the drag of his hands undoing his suit, Levi feels like a star that’s been lit, explosive and volatile, incredibly bright. 

* * *

 

“Oh my god I’ve wanted to do this for two entire years,” Eren is muttering, hands running reverently over Levi’s plugsuit-clad ass. Levi shivers, embarrassed. 

“I’m not sure how I feel about that,” Levi says, trying for nonchalant and coming out breathless instead. Eren is _very_  distracting, half out of his suit and draped around Levi like he had all the time in the world. He had 56 minutes, actually, before the day started and they had to report in. 

Levi grinds down against him, and Eren shudders as the ridged fabric on Levi’s thigh brushes up against him. “Fuck, I love you,” Eren breathes, tears wet in his eyes as he grips at Levi’s hand so hard it hurts. 

Levi stills, bends down to kiss the breath out of Eren, and peels himself halfway out of his suit. 

“I know. Me too,” he breathes, mouthing at the join of Eren’s neck as Eren comes apart in his arms, warm and languid as new stars.

“Me too.” 


	57. Epilogue II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An end. An ocean. Living together.

Levi had never seen the oceans before this, and now the knowledge sits comfortably at the back of his mind– he can say that Eren is like the ocean, some previously unquantifiable thing about him made describable the moment he set eyes on that blue horizon.

* * *

 

_It was less bright than he’d pictured, he had thought, when their squad –or what was left of it– dismounted and their boots crunched in the rock-sand of the beach with small, sandy crunches. Storm clouds had gathered low, an incoming storm singing in the air strong enough to make Levi’s bones ache. Everyone was on edge, and Levi looks at Eren, huddled in his coat with a faraway look in his eyes._

_They’d made it._

_The titans were gone, and they’d made it._

* * *

 

They make a home further inland, in a little clearing where humans must have settled before the titans came. It turns out that Sasha is very knowledgable about building and timber, and the rest of them make it up as they go along, learning about building, their backs heaving as they push wood into joints into structures into homes.

There are a few little huts, and as the months go by and the weather gets warmer, a small garden gets built, root vegetables and their leaves poking up from the soft soil a startling reminder that things were growing freely without trampling, now. 

Armin records all this information with a steady hand and clear blue eyes, and they live, their tiny village of survivors, in the middle of nowhere, near the sea.

* * *

 

“ _No.”  
_

_Levi’s voice is flat and harsh and everyone in the room averts their eyes._

_“I will not,” he says, before anyone can cut him off. He will not kill Eren. They had sacrificed too much for their quest, lives upon lives fed into the gaping maw of a war they weren’t supposed to be fighting. The boy, Eren- young, brave, perfect Eren– had died over and over again, Titan blood singing in his veins as he fought and grew and died and came alive again.  
_

_And they wanted to kill him. The last Titan, they’d said._

_Levi thinks about Eren, the rest of his squad, the children who had grown into young adults, and the catches of their smiles when they looked up to him, fond, concerned, attached. Eren, with his soft smiles and tentative hands, his fastidiousness, the way his name fit in his mouth. Levi will not kill Eren. He has followed orders, and destroyed things in the name of humanity, but he will not sacrifice his own._

_Hanji grabs his arm to still him._

_“Levi, he has to die,” they say, a strange look hard in their eyes, “And-well. If he resists, and he takes some of you with him, that’s understandable. He is a monster, after all.”  
_

_Levi stares at Hanji in confusion, not understanding why they would say something like that about Eren, when they- all of them- loved Eren, would die for him the way he had died for them countless times. Something rustles in his hands._

_A map. A list. A plan for escape._

_“Eren is going to die, and he’s going to take us down with him. I’ve talked to the kids, and those who want to go will meet you by the West Gate in three days.”  
_

_The taste of it all sits heavy on his tongue, but Levi knows this is the best, and only way, they can all live. They should have known that fighting for humanity’s sake was useless, when most of the population had none left in them._

_The map feels brittle in his hand. Levi nods._

* * *

 

“I feel… selfish,” Eren says, legs swinging over the edge of the rock he’d perched on. His hair is messed up in the seabreeze, and it’s gotten long enough that Levi wants to run his fingers through, wants to tangle his hands in that soft hair and _pull._

“Do you think the others will regret it? Coming with me? Leaving.. I don’t know– civilisation?” 

Levi looks at Eren. The boy fidgets a bit, looking younger than his 21 years, all the long grace and lithe strength of his body invisible as he looks up uncertainly at his not-superior officer. 

“Do you really think we would?” Levi asks, softly. He hasn’t had to shout for a long time, now. 

Eren shakes his head, even as his eyes look doubtful. 

“Sometimes- sometimes I’m scared. I dream, I dream that one day I’m going to wake up and everyone’s going to be gone.”

Levi steps closer, placing a hand on Eren’s shoulder. It’s warm, the titan-heat of Eren seeping up into his cold palms. Eren leans close, and Levi wants to pull him closer, take him apart, hurt him, protect him, keep him safe from his own thoughts. 

“Eren, you would die for any of us, wouldn’t you?” Levi says, conversationally, as though weighing lives against each other was something they did all the time. (They used to. It feels just about as wrong as it did then.) 

Eren turns around, all youth and earnestness and furrowed brows as his voice pitches up a bit.

“Of course! Why would you-” 

Levi cuts him off, a smile threatening to tug at his lips. He gives in, smiles at Eren, smoothes the set of his shoulders down. (It’s so easy to _touch_  him, nowadays, stripped of rank and anything else between them.)

“So would we. We would live for you, as well. For each other, really. You’re important, kid, we all chose this. Have faith in that, if nothing else. Or are you not going to trust me?” Levi challenges, and is rewarded when he sees the flush start on Eren’s face as he sputters.

“Of course I trust you, sir,” Eren mumbles. Levi raises his eyebrows at him.

“…Levi.” Eren says, reluctantly, softly, as though he’s still unable to believe that he can just _say_  Levi’s name like that. Like it’s his to say.

In hindsight, Levi might have blamed it on the ocean, the sea salt spray and foam and the crashing of the waves on rock and sand. It mirrors that rush in his ears, when Eren tilts his head up and looks at him, softer now, so much softer than that young, angry child soldier he’d nurtured. 

* * *

 

They’d fought for this. This right to live, this right to a life of peace. There is a grave, a mound of stones they’d erected overlooking the sea, and there, a row of rusted 3DMG blades break the organic line of the cliffs. There are patches buried there, bones. They’d buried the dead, their momentos, themselves, their pasts. Humanity’s strongest, the Last Titan, their squad, they’d all died, written away as collateral damage in the histories of the humanity they’d save. 

Out here, they lived. They were alive, and the callouses on Levi’s hand don’t come from gripping blades anymore, but from spades, from hunting, from the crude tools they’d fashioned as they tried to make things grow rather than die. Levi doesn’t… He doesn’t miss the fighting. Nothing would make him miss the fighting, but sometimes he misses flying. And Eren- Eren feels like a keystone, the foundation upon which Levi had built this new life. Eren feels a bit like freefall, and Levi hasn’t practiced landing in years. 

* * *

 

He never manages to blame it on the ocean, or anything other than himself, when he leans down to press his lips dry against Eren’s. There is a lurch right behind his sternum when he hears Eren gasp, body shuddering as tanned hands reach up to curl themselves into his shirt. 

When he pulls away, heart hammering in his throat, Eren is looking at him, big green eyes wide and lips red and soft. It looks– well. It makes Levi want to kiss him again. He doesn’t know when his protectiveness and respect tangled into the mess he’s been housing in his ribcage, but somewhere along the line Eren had become something that unfurled in his chest, large and warm and full to brimming. Eren makes Levi forget to breathe, and he thinks, maybe out here, with nothing but the sea and sky and a bunch of kids living in a village in the middle of nowhere – maybe he can take that feeling and give it a name, press it back into Eren’s hands and trust that he won’t crush it.

“Levi.” Eren says, and the way his voice catches on his name sends him to his knees as he curls closer to Eren, out of his depth and wanting to be closer. He looks up at Eren, hands framing his lovely face, and asks.

“Should I not have done that?” 

He knows, or rather, he trusts that Eren will trust him. Whatever Eren says next he will believe and respect, because after years of fighting at each other’s backs there are some things that will not break under awkwardness, or something like this. Even so, Levi hopes. 

Eren shakes his head.

Eren shakes his head, and he smiles, and Levi thinks fuzzily that it might have been the most beautiful thing he has seen. He used to long for the sky as a child in the underground, but Eren, Eren like this, smiling like sunbursts against a grey sky– Eren feels like the thing he longed for, for so many years. 

He leans up, fits his mouth over Erens, and kisses him, over and over again until the taste of him, the sound of his sighs all become familiar, new information to slot into Levi’s brain to save and cherish for years and years. 

“I never… I never thought you would..” _reciprocate_ goes unsaid, neither of them really acknowledging the years Eren’s eyes had followed Levi across the mess hall, the way he’d looked hungry for years, and then fond. 

“It would have felt like taking advantage,” Levi confesses, tucking his face against Eren’s and breathing in deep. 

“And now?” Eren says, mouthing curiously at Levi’s jaw, and for someone who has been pining after Levi for years the boy is remarkably calm, but Levi suppose that is what happens when you’ve had years to come to terms with your feelings. 

Levi tilts his face down, looking at Eren, taking in the set of his brows and the slight, unsure edge of his mouth. He thumbs it away, finally giving in to the impulse, and smiles down at Eren. 

“I don’t feel like I’m taking advantage, now,” he says, conversationally, calmly, as he watches Eren flush warm and pleased and happy. 

A pause. Eren laughs, and the sound makes something twist in Levi’s chest. 

“You could, you know.” Eren says, and Levi can tell from the tone of his voice that he’s not being serious, so he tilts his head and asks archly. “I could do what?”

Eren grins, canting his chin up to kiss the underside of Levi’s jaw. 

“Take advantage of me, I mean.” 

The shit-eating grin that’s on Eren’s face is the final straw, and Levi laughs, throws his head back and laughs in a way that he hasn’t for a long time, or ever, really, if he thinks about it. That tight knot in his chest is loosening, and he can’t seem to breathe very well but Eren is right _there_  and warm and kissing back and Levi can’t seem to bring himself to care about anything else right now.

* * *

 

He hears Mikasa calling from them at the base of the hill. At some point, they have to go down, back into their warm, self-built homes, and find out what Sasha managed to hunt for the week. They have to repair their tools, work the farms, and Hanji was supposed to come by their settlement sometime this week. (The benefits of being known as a crazy scientist, apaprently, was that you could disappear for weeks on end and bring gifts like tea and supplies to your ‘dead’ friends under the guise of research trips.) 

Levi pulls away from Eren, takes his hands, and stands up, pulling Eren with him. Against the blue of the ocean behind him, and the newfound knowledge of whatever it was blooming between them, Levi doesn’t know how he’s going to manage to do anything other than pin Eren down and kiss him senseless all week. Eren laughs at him, expression knowing, as he steps in close and kisses Levi again, softly, quietly, like a promise pressed against his lips, and Levi hears the crashing in his ears again, and everything feels like saltwater churning in his lungs, volatile, surging, warm. 

They walk back home together, holding hands, smiling.


	58. Pacifica

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A seaside town.

He moves to the seaside expecting warm sand and clear air to be a balm against his loss, and arrives on the 24th in the middle of Summer to fog, brine and salt strong in his nostrils. He heaves cardboard boxes into the dusty house that is now his, and ignores the taste of salt against his lips.

It’s just the sea, Levi tells himself. 

—

He spends two weeks clearing out the detritus of his childhood, posting ads on Craigslist,  _(Hardwood Bedroom Set, gently used, US$200)_ ; an attempt to empty it of all memory. The photo albums he tosses into the fireplace, and laughs bitterly when some of them fall out of the yellowed adhesive-pages, scattered at his feet.

The sight of Isabel’s sepia-smile sucks the air out of him, and his lungs feel bruised with every breath he takes. He picks the photograph up with trembling hands, memory rattling around in his skull. The both of them, fifteen and nine at the beach.

_“Brother!” Isabel shrieks, sand crusted on her legs as she laughs and laughs._

He slips the photograph into his wallet. It’s slightly singed. For the first time in weeks, his cheeks are dry.

* * *

 

He walks the ten minutes to the village to get groceries when he finally tires of hiding in his house and eating out of crappy takeout boxes. He recognises the man at the counter through the greying hair and full moustache.

Mr. Tom?” he asks, disbelieving.

The old man pauses, liver-spotted hands halfway through manoeuvring eggs into a paper bag.

“Yes?” Tom replies, squinting at Levi.

“You probably don’t remember me,” Levi begins, already wishing he hadn’t said anything. “I’m Levi Ackerman. My sister and I used to bother you a lot when we lived here.”

Tom laughs, and it sounds the same — breathy and warm, and Levi smiles. Eleven years, and nothing has changed.

He leaves the store with a bag of groceries and a promise to visit already pricking guilt in his chest. On the way home, he meanders down to the shore, walking until the wind bites at his cheek and his fingers go numb around the handle of his paper bag.

He walks until the concrete path gives way to loamy sand-soil, the heels of his boots sinking into the ground with each step. The wind-battered trees he remembers are still there, bent halfway at the trunk and scrubby. The pedestrians are as he remembers; old couples with their hats and fleece jackets, the mothers with strollers of bundled up babies. He nods, murmuring Good Morning’s to them, bending down once or twice to scratch under a dog’s chin. The sea feels the same, cold and unforgiving, and despite the years he’d spent living in the claustrophobic embrace of cities, he feels himself slip into the slow amble that he used to know.

Then again, he supposes that there really isn’t much that he needs to do, now.   
  


* * *

 

He takes to walking by the sea in the mornings, and some of his neighbours start to recognise him. They talk to him despite his awkward reluctance, as though trying to overwhelm him with chipper friendliness. They push food on him when all else fails, and he ends up helping them with their bags when he notices their fatigue. 

  
  “Such a sweet boy,” they call him, and Levi laughs. He hasn’t been called a boy for years, but here, it seems to fit.

—

There’s already somebody at the top of the cliff when Levi reaches the end of his hike one morning. When the stranger turns, Levi catches sight of green eyes and thinks, _Isabel_ , stepping forward with hope desperate in his throat before catching himself.

“Good Morning,” the boy says, peering at him worriedly, “Are you okay?” 

  
“‘Morning,” Levi replies, hoarse. “I’m fine. You- you look like my sister. It surprised me.”

The boy blinks, and laughs easily.

“Most people wouldn’t enjoy being told that, you know.”

Levi doesn’t reply, shrugging a little and looking past the boy and his green eyes to gaze out at the sea. 

  
  “What’s she like? Your sister.”

Levi swallows.

“She was bright. Laughed a lot. A brat. Kind of stubborn,” Levi murmurs. This is the most he’s spoken in a month and it’s nothing he ever wanted to speak of, but the kid just sits down on the pebbly floor and looks up at him, patient.

“I’m sorry,” he offers, when Levi doesn’t continue. Levi sits down, too, dirt and grass cold under his palms. 

  
 “I’m Eren, by the way.”

“Levi.”

They stay like that for a while, talking and skirting around topics that are clearly too sore until Levi feels less raw around the edges. Eren has only been here for a week, meaning that he is the only person that hasn’t lived here for the past 30 years that Levi has met so far, and he tells himself that it’s the only reason he’s reluctant to go home.

“I’ll see you around, Eren,” Levi says, and means it.

* * *

 

It turns out that Eren, too, has been living out of takeout boxes, so Levi drags him out to drive into the nearby town, because no self-respecting resident can live without having eaten _Maria’s_ sandwiches. Eren fiddles, connecting his phone to the car stereo and hums along to songs that Levi doesn’t recognise, but enjoys. 

They bring their lunch to a park, which is more like a plot of bare land, concrete and wildflowers warring to occupy the same space. The ravens edge closer, suspicious until Levi pulls a piece of meat from his sandwich and tosses it to them. Eren laughs at a particularly fluffy raven, he himself being the most windswept thing that Levi has seen.

He ruffles Eren’s hair into further disarray, fingers tangled in the soft brown hair as Eren ducks his head down as he laughs and laughs.

* * *

 

Eren is not Isabel. Levi knows this. 

* * *

 

On certain mornings, Levi wakes up drowning. His room is bare; cardboard boxes still half-unpacked, and there is no air to be had at 5:43 a.m. and grief and memory is filling your house to its roof. He goes to run near the ocean, sand in his shoes and his steps heavy and dragging. His lungs are searing by the time he reaches the cliff where he met Eren, and he crumples to the ground with a passing thought that Eren would be here in a few hours.

For some reason, the thought calms him.

 He doesn’t want to be alone.

* * *

 

By the time Levi has shown Eren all of town, it has been two months and half a dozen childhood hiding spots rediscovered. The stories come easy, now, stories of skinned knees and captured sea creatures found on the muddy shore. Eren soaks them all in, a new, warm constant in this cold, old town. 

* * *

 

He moved to the seaside expecting warm sand and clear air to be a balm against his loss, and instead found a boy with eyes like the ocean on a bright afternoon, warm and blue-green. Eren is reconciliation to a home Levi had forgotten.

He heaves cardboard boxes into the house that’s now theirs, ignoring the sound of Eren’s voice calling for help with moving his furniture.

* * *

 

“I like it here,” Eren says, stretched out on the deck at Levi’s house. 

  
“Me too,” Levi says, and finds that he means it.

**Author's Note:**

> All of these are on my writing tumblr (www.porcelain-blue.tumblr.com), where I post short drabbles and writing when the inspiration hits. I'll be updating here every so often for archiving purposes! Thank you for reading! :)


End file.
